BHOHHHHHHMHnai 


The 
Know-  Nothingr 

Party. 


^ 


A  Sketch 
By  Humphrey  J.  Desmond. 


Washington : 
The  New  Century  Press. 
190l|- 


^^'^ 


J'^^J.i'^ 


COPYRIGHT,  Woif- 
BY  H.    J.   DESMOND. 


PREFACE. 

A  GENERAL  view  of  the  Nativist 
Movement  in  American  politics  has 
many  points  of  interest  for  the  student 
of  history,  and  not  a  few  instructive 
lessons  probably  applicable  to  future 
conditions.  Movements  of  this  nature 
are  quite  likely  to  recur;  if,  perhaps, 
in  a  somewhat  varied  and  feebler  form, 
nevertheless  in  their  salient  character- 
istics, closely  modeled  after  the  I^ow- 
Nothing  party  of  1854. 

In  the  pages  of  Von  Hoist  and 
Rhodes,  in  the  special  pleadings  of  Lee 
and  Whitney,  in  more  careful  local 
studies  such  as  those  of  Scisco,  in  the 
annals  of  Congress,  in  the  biographies 
or  memoirs  of  men  prominent  in  Amer- 
ican public  life  fifty  years  ago,  in  the 
political  text  books  of  the  time,  and  in 
a  variety  of  other  publications,  thei*e 
is  a  vast  amount  of  information  bear- 
ing upon  the  Nativist  and  Know- 
Nothing  movements ;  but,  so  far  as  the 
3 


writer  of  these  pages  is  able  to  ascer- 
tain, no  attempt  has  heretofore  been 
made  to  gather,  from  all  the  best 
sources,  a  survey  at  once  complete 
(at  least  within  the  limitations  of  brev- 
ity here  proposed),  connected  and  free 
from  the  spirit  of  advocacy. 


I 


CONTEXTS. 
xative-a:mericaxism. 

1.  A  Prelimiuary  View,          -     -  7 

2.  Nativism  in  Local  Politics,    -  22 

3.  Ite   High   Tide  (1844),     -    -  34 

THE   KXOW-XOTHIXG   PARTY. 

1.  Origin    and    Growth,     -     -     -  48 

2.  High  Tide  (1854),    -     -     -     -  59 

3.  Disturbances  and  Acrimony,  -  TO 

4.  Democratic    and    Republican 

Attitudes,     ------  82 

5.  Know-Nothing      Issues,     -     -  91 

6.  Solvent  Influences,    -     -     -     -  100 

7.  The  Campaign  of  1856,     -     -  110 

8.  Know-Xothings  in  Congress,  117 

9.  Last  Years,      - 122 

10.  Local  Sketches,     -----  126 

11.  Personnel,       ------  139 

12.  Afterwards    (1860-90),  -    -     -  149 


Native    Americanism. 
I. 

A  PRELIMINARY  VIEW. 

T  OOKING  back,  from  the  threshold 
■*— '  of  a  new  century,  at  the  move- 
ments of  Nativism  and  anti-Catholic- 
ism which  transpired  in  the  United 
States  during  the  period  1835-60,  we 
can  feel  little  surprise  in  the  premises. 
The  mighty  immigrations  of  the  nine- 
teenth century  jostled  the"  settled  col- 
onists of  the  seventeenth  and*  eigh- 
teenth centuries,  established  here  in  a 
political  and  industrial  ascendancy.  A 
total  of  over  five  million  immigrants 
landed  on  our  shores  up  to  1850;  a  to- 
tal of  nearly  twenty  million  up  to 
1900.  At  the  close  of  the  century  ov- 
7 


NATIVE  AMERICANISM. 

er  ten  million  foreign  bom  persons  are 
residents  of  the  United  States,  and 
more  than  twenty-six  million*  of  the 
sixty-six  million  white  inhabitants  are 
of  foreign  parentage;  making  it  quite 
certain  that  a  majority  of  the  Ameri- 
cans of  today  are  descendants  of  fore- 
fathers who  came  here  since  Jefferson 
was  president — the  old  Americans  of 
Revolutionary  lineage  being  outnum- 
bered by  the  children  of  ancestors  who 
were  not  here  when  Washington  lived. 
So  mighty  an  invasion,  peaceable 
though  it  was,  could  not  transpire 
without  much  collision  and  many  read- 
justments. The  arrival  in  our  large 
cities  of  thousands  of  immigrants, 
differing  in  race  and  religion  from  the 
native  inhabitants,  created  conditions 
for  social  and  political  compromise. 
The  Irish,  for  instance,  while  exhibit- 
ing a  capacity  to  assimilate  their 
neighbors,  and  sometimes  (as  in  the 
case  of  the  Norman  and  English  set- 
tlers in  Ireland)  to  make  them  "more 


♦  By  the  census  of  1900  more  than  half 
the  people  of  foreign  parentag-e  in  this 
countrj-  are  of  non-English  speaking  races. 
More  than  half,  too,  are  in  race  neither 
Teutonic  'nor  Anglo-Saxon. 

8 


NATIVE  AMERICANISM. 

Irish  than  the  Irish  themselves" — also 
have,  for  some  reason  or  other,  excited 
antagonisms  more  bitter  than  assailed 
any  other  race  of  immigrants.f 

In  the  sequel,  Nativism  met  with  ut- 
ter defeat  in  all  its  cherished  conten- 
tions ;  yet  substantially  the  victory  was 
on  the  side  of  the  Americans  of  the 
older  lineage.  There  was  always  a 
larger-viewed  element  among  them  dis- 
posed to  welcome  immigi*ation  to 
this  country  as  "the  asyhim  of  the  op- 
pressed;" to  see  in  the  imported 
brawn  of  the  Irish  and  German,  mater- 
ial for  national  enrichment — the  in- 
dustrial army  needed  for  the  develop- 


t  Scisco,  in  his  "Histor>'  of  Political  Na- 
tivism in  New  York,"  says  (ch.  I.):  "An 
anonymous  writer  to  the  press  touched  on 
the  truth  when  he  complained  of  the  Irish 
Catholics  that  'they  are  men,  who  having 
professed  to  become  Americans  by  accept- 
ing our  terms  of  naturalization,  do  yet,  in 
direct  contradiction  to  their  professions, 
clan  together  as  a  separate  interest  and 
retain  their  foreign  appellation.'  No  bet- 
ter statement  of  Nativist  complaint  could 
have  been  made."  Yet  to  a  large  extent 
this  going  apart  of  the  Irish  was  but  na- 
tural, in  view  of  the  contemptuous  manner 
in  which  the  "nativist"  Americans  treated 
them,  ridiculing  their  appearance,  their 
country  and  their  religion. 


NATIVE  AMERICANISM. 

ment  of  the  country.  History,  too,  re- 
cords no  more  notable  instance  of  spee- 
dy and  complete  assimilation  of  a  vast 
influx  of  population.  The  social,  polit- 
ical and  educational  institutions  of 
the  Americans  Qf'feevol^tionai'y  line- 
age survived  and  absorbed  and  won  ov- 
er the  mighty  army  of  immigrants, 
and  welded  all.  elements- into  a  unified 
nationality. 

There  never  was  any  deep-seated  an- 
tipathy to  foreigners,  as  such,  in  this 
country.  Nativism  in  its  restricted 
sense  (dislike  of  European  immigrants 
on  account  of  their  birth)  was  always 
more  or  less  accidental  and  sporadic. 
It  is  usual  in  discussing  the  genesis 
of  the  Native-American  movement  to 
refer  to  the  Alien  acts  of  1798  as  one 
of  the  first  manifestations  of  this  feel- 
ing, or  to  the  mythical  order  of  Wash- 
ington at  Valley  Forge:  "Put  none 
but  Americans  on  guard  tonight." 

That  which  gave  !N  ative- American- 
ism  its  real  strength  and  animus,  how- 
ever,     was      anti-Catholicism;:}:      and 

%  Brownson  in  his  Quarterly  Re\'iew  for 
January  1845,  in  a  survey  of  Native  Ameri- 
canism, says  that  the  reaJ  objection  to  the 

10 


NATIVE  AMERICANISM. 

the  roots  of  this  feeling  lie  far  back  in 
colonial  days.  The  colonists  carried 
the  "No  Popery"  sentiment  from  their 
English  homes.  Founded  on  sectarian 
lines,  the  colonies  naturally  were  more 
deeply  tinctm-ed  with  this  feeling 
than  was  England  herself;  and  cir- 
cumstances, such  as  warfare  with  the 
French  Catholics  on  the  north  and 
west,  and  with  the  Spanish  Catholics 
in  Florida,  deepened  the  sentiment. 
One  reason  that  the  French-Canadians 
did  not  join  with  the  American  colon- 
ies in  revolt  against  England  was  their 
sense  of  being  fairly  treated,  by  the 
English,  in  their  religious  interests; 
and  although  the  continental  congress 
sent  a  Catholic  priest§  among  its 
emissaries  to  them,  with  proffers  of  an 
equal  partnership  and  independent 
statehood,  they  distrusted  colonial  big- 
otry. France's  providential  assistance 
to  the  struggling  colonies,  the  presence 
of  her  Catholic  soldiers  with  their  af- 

foreigner  lay  deeper  than  the  accident  of 
birth.  "The  party  is  truly  an  anti-Catho- 
lic party." 

§  This  was  Rev.  John  Carroll  after- 
wards the  first  Catholic  bishop  of  the 
United  States. 

11 


NATIVE  AMERICANISM. 

fable  chaplains  and  courteous  officers, 
remained  a  liberalizing  memory  with 
the  Revolutionary  generation. 

From  1780  to  1830— a  period  of  fifty 
years — the  No  Popery  sentiment  slept 
with  but  little  awakening.  The  brief 
crusade  against  aliens  during  the  lat- 
ter part  of  Adams'  administration  was 
strictly  incidental  to  the  division  be- 
tween the  parties — the  Jeffersonian 
party,  as  the  friend  of  France,  having 
the  adhesion  naturally  of  all  the 
French,  Irish  and  Scotch  immigrants 
of  that  time.  The  Alien  act  which  had 
extended  the  period  of  residence  re- 
quired for  naturalization  to  fourteen 
years,  was  repealed  in  1802,  and  the 
five  years'  requirement  of  residence  re- 
stored. The  demand  made  by  the 
Hartford  Convention  (1814-15),  that 
aliens  be  debarred  from  civil  office|i 
may  have  been  suggested  by  the 
enthusiasm  with  which  the  Irish  im- 
migrants hailed  the  war  of  1812 — so 
unpopular  with  New  England.  British 
Minister  Foster,  who  had  labored  to 
prevent  this  war,  said  that  among  the 

II  This  was  one  of  the  seven  amend- 
ments to  the  constitution  proposed  by  the 
Hartford  Convention. 

12 


NATIVE  AMERICANISM. 

congressmen  who  voted  to  declare  war 
were  six  members  of  the  Society  of 
United  Irishmen.** 

There   was    really   little   ground   for 
alarm   in   the   number   of   immigrants 
which   reached  our   shores   in   the   de- 
cades ending  with  1840.     Up  to  1820 
foreigners    came    to    America     at     the 
rate  of  10,000  a  year.     From  1821  to 
1830,  inclusive,  143,439  landed.     From 
1831  to  1840,  the  immigration  increas- 
ed to  a  total  of  nearly  600,000,  or  about 
three  per  cent,  of  the  total  population 
(seventeen  millions)   in  1840.       From 
1840-50  (principally  in  the  last  half  of 
the  decade)    1,700,000   immigrants   ar- 
rived, or  seven  per  cent,  of  the  popula- 
tion in  1850.     The  percentage   of  the 
foreign  born  population  in  the  decades 
prior    to     1850  was    considerably    less 
than  it  has  been  since  the  close  of  the 
Civil  War.     In  1850  the  foreign  born 
element  was  9.7  per  cent,  of  the  whole 
population.     During  the  period  1860- 
1900  it  has  varied  between  13  and  14 
per  cent. 

The   really   alarming    symptom   was 

**  See  Alexander  Johnston's  article  on 
"The  American  Party,"  in  the  "American 
Cyclopaedia  of  Politics." 

13 


NATIVE  AMERICANISM. 

tLe  large  proportion  of  Catholics 
among  the  iramigrants.  More  than  a 
third  of  the  immigrants  for  the  de- 
cades ending  1830  and  1840  were  from 
Ireland,  and  nearly  one-half  of  the 
1,700,000  who  landed  from  1841-50 
were  Irish.  More  than  a  half,  and 
probably  nearly  three-fifths,  of  the  im- 
migrants up  to  1860  were  Catholics. 

It  is  probable  that  the  English  "No- 
Popery"  agitation  (1815-29),  which 
antagonized  the  movement  for  Catho- 
lic emancipation  in  Ireland  and  Eng- 
land, had  some  influence  in  alarming 
the  more  sectarian  portion  of  the 
American  public.  The  opposition  to 
Catholic  emancipation  in  England  nec- 
essarily reverted  to  the  position  of 
Elizabeth's  and  Cromwell's  time — that 
the  Catholic  religion  was  not  entitled 
to  toleration — that  it  was  a  political 
danger — that  it  inculcated  a  divided 
allegiance,  etc.  This  argument  was 
adopted  in  America.  The  pulpit 
alarmist  could  point  to  new  object  les- 
sons, up  to  this  time  unfamiliar  to  the 
American  population:  bishops  (there 
were  only  ten  American  Catholic  bish- 
ops in  1833),  cathedrals  (rather  unpre- 
14 


NATIVE  AMERICANISM. 

tentious  affairs),  sisterhoods  in  a  pecu- 
liar garb  and  convents  or  nunneries. 

A  consciousness  of  this  change  in 
public  feeling  is  shown  in  some  pas- 
sages Tvhich  occur  in  the  pastoral  is- 
sued in  1833  by  the  Catholic  bishops 
on  the  occasion  of  their  second  pro- 
vincial council.  They  refer  to  the  cal- 
umnies current  in  the  press.  "We  no- 
tice with  regret,"  they  say,  "a  spirit 
exhibited  by  some  of  the  conductors 
of  the  press  engaged  in  the  interest  of 
those  brethren  separated  from  our 
communion,  which  has,  within  a  few 
years,  been  more  unkind  and  unjust 
in  our  regard.  Not  only  do  they  assail 
us  and  our  institutions  in  a  style  of 
vituperation  and  offence.  *  *  but 
they  have  even  denounced  you  as  en- 
emies of  the  republic,  etc." 

The  first  outbreak  of  nativism  oc- 
curred in  1834 — the  burning  of  the 
TJrsuline  convent  at  Charlestown,  near 
Boston.  In  1833,  one  Rebecca  Reed 
had  left  this  institution  and  told  such 
tales  of  harsh  treatment  that  when,  in 
the  following  year.  Miss  Harrison 
(Sister  Mary  John),  left  the  same  con- 
vent in  a  dazed  and  hysterical  condi- 
tion, the  public  became  excited.  She 
15 


NATIVE  AMERICANISM. 

suifered  from  nervous  prostration 
caused  by  overwork  in  preparing  her 
pupils  for  an  exhibition.  Her  brother 
induced  her  to  return  to  the  convent, 
where  she  was  placed  under  a  physi- 
cian's care.  On  August  9,  1834,  u 
mob  composed  of  the  lower  element 
of  Boston's  population,  surrounded  the 
the  convent,  and,  although  Miss  Har- 
rison came  forth  and  assured  them 
that  she  was  not  detained  against  her 
will,  they  ransacked  and  burned  the 
building.  The  better  class  of  Boston 
citizens  held  an  indignation  meeting 
in  Fanueil  hall,  at  which  the  mayor 
presided,  and  the  outrage  was  de- 
nounced. The  perpetrators  were  put 
on  trial,  but  weakly  prosecuted  and 
consequently  acquitted.  The  sisters 
never  obtained  compensation  for  their 
loss  of  property,  although  a  coramit- 
tee  of  the  Legislature  subsequently 
recommended  this  act  of  public  jus- 
tice. 

In  1836  a  book  was  published  which 
has  been  termed  "The  Uncle  Tom's 
Cabin  of  Know-ISI^othingism.  Maria 
Monlv,  a  girl  of  evil  character,  had 
been  placed  by  her  mother  in  a  Magda- 
len asylum  at  Montreal,  under  the 
16 


NATIVE  AMERICANISM. 

charge  of  a  Catholic  sisterhood.  Aid- 
ed by  a  former  paramour,  she  escaped 
and  shortly  fell  into  the  company  of 
one  Rev.  J.  J.  Slocum,  who,  with  oth- 
ers, concocted  a  sensational  and  ob- 
scene narrative  of  her  experience  in 
the  assumed  capacity  of  a  nun.  This 
book  was  brought  out  with  Howe  & 
Bates  as  nominal  publishers — these 
men  being  employees  of  Harper  Broth- 
ers (which  publishing  firm,  it  is  said, 
really  stood  behind  the  enterprise,  but: 
was  reluctant  to  assume  direct  respon- 
sibility). Maria  Monk's  "disclosures" 
had  an  immense  sale,  exceeding  that 
of  any  American  book  up  to  that  time 
published.  Ministers  recommended 
it  and  churches  feted  its  author.  She 
was  taken  into  the  bosom  of  Christian 
homes,  where,  after  a  time,  her  de- 
pravity was  perceived.  It  is  to  be  re- 
gretted that  one  so  useful  to  evangel- 
icalism should  have  been  allowed  to 
sink  in  the  social  scale  so  that  she  af- 
terwards died  in  a  public  institution. 
The  parties  to  this  literary  enterprise 
began  litigation  among  themselves  for 
the  profits.  A  party  of  Protestant 
clergymen  visited  Montreal  to  verify- 
the  "awful  disclosures"  and  pro- 
17 


NATIVE  AMERICANISM. 

nounced  them  a  fabrication.  Colonel 
W.  L.  Stone,  editor  of  The  New  York 
Commercial  Advertiser,  also  made  a 
thorough  investigation,  visiting  the 
Hotel  Dieu  at  Montreal  from  cellar 
to  garret.  "The  result,"  he  wrote,  "is 
the  most  thorough  conviction  that  Ma- 
ria Monk  is  an  arrant  impostor,  that 
she  never  was  a  nun,  etc." 

These  two  early  manifestations  of 
anti-Catholicism  are  particularly  dwelt 
upon  because  they  are  prototypes  of  its 
campaign  tactics  in  the  following 
years.  Edward  Wilson,  in  1845,  Ga- 
vazzi  and  the  "Angel  Gabriel"  in  1853- 
5,  and  a  score  of  others  followed  in  the 
line  of  Maria  Monk;  and  what  Prof- 
essor John  B.  McMaster  calls  the 
"riotous  career  of  Know-Nothings," 
was  a  repetition  of  the  convent  burn- 
ing of  1834.  The  ex-priest,  the  es- 
caped nun  and  the  incendiary  led  the 
way,  as  the  radical  exponents  of  a 
cause,  which  nevertheless  numbered 
among  its  followers  some  respectable 
elements. 

In  the  year  following  1830,  a  new  ex- 
uberance overtook  the  electoral  life  of 
the  American  people.  They  talked  pol- 
itics with  vigor  and  gesticulation ;  they 
18 


NATIVE  AMERICANISM. 

interrupted  each  others  political  meet- 
ings; they  jostled  each  other  at  the 
polls.  It  became  part  of  the  election 
day  program  for  each  party  to  be  rep- 
resented at  the  voting  precincts  by 
partisans,  loud  of  lungs  and  strong  of 
arm.  The  native  American  had  prac- 
ticed all  the  tricks  and  frauds  of  poli- 
tics, such  as  intimidating  voters,  stuf- 
fing ballot  boxes,  repeating  and  tam- 
pering with  the  returns,  long  before 
the  foreigner  was  instructed  in  these 
processes.  In  the  history  of  the  Aboli- 
tion moveinent,  we  have  an  illustratioa 
of  the  riotous  spirit  of  the  American 
polities  of  that  generation.  In  183.5, 
Thompson,  an  Abolition  advocate,  was 
mobbed  in  Boston  and  forced  to  leave 
the  city.  Garrison,  too,  felt  the  wrath 
of  "a  broadcloth  mob."  November  7, 
1837,  Lovejoy,  an  Abolitionist  editor, 
was  murdered  at  Alton,  111.,  because  he 
refused  to  suspend  liis  publication. 
May  17,  1838,  Pennsylvania  hall,  the 
Abolitionist  headquarters  at  Philadel- 
phia, was  burned  to  the  ground  by  the 
intolerant  opponents  of  the  anti-slave- 
ry movement.  And  thus  on  to  1860, 
did  Abolitionism  meet  with  disorderly 
and  riotcms  opposition.  The  party  fac- 
19 


NATIVE  AMERICANISM. 

tions  quarrelled  ■with  each  other,  Whigs 
assailed  Whigs,  and  Democrats  as- 
sailed Democrats.  The  expression  ''Lo- 
co Focos"  applied  to  one  of  the  Demo- 
cratic factions  in  Xew  York,  originated 
over  the  incident  of  an  interrupted  meet- 
ing (October  29,  1835).  Emissaries  of 
one  Democratic  faction  turned  off  tho 
lights  at  a  meeting  held  by  another  fac- 
tion. Immediately  the  engloomed  Dem- 
ocrats, who  had  prepared  for  the  emer- 
gency beforehand,  took  from  their 
pockets  the  new  Loco  Foco  match  which 
had  just  come  into  use,  and  relighted 
their  meeting. 

Know-Xothingism  ran  its  course 
at  a  time  when  this  sort  of 
exuberant  politics  had  reached  its  cli- 
max. The  Know-Xothings  were  not 
the  inventors,  but  they  carried  the 
method,  especially  in  Baltimore,  to  its 
worst  excesses.* 

From  a  survey  of  disorder  of  this 
kind,  we  are  led  to  wonder  where  the 

*  Volunteer  fire  companies,  which  existed 
In  the  principal  cities  of  the  United  States 
at  this  time,  -were  largely  responsible  for 
street  disorders.  There  was  an  intense 
rivalry  between  the  companies,  and  some- 
times fires  were  started  on  purpose  to 
bring  the   rival  firemen  into   collision. 

20 


NATIVE  AMERICANISM. 

American  notion  of  free  speech  de- 
veloped; yet  it  did  evolve.  If  at  first 
a  mere  glittering  generality;  if  more 
honored  in  the  breach  than  in  the  ob- 
servance; if  more  as  a  pretence  than 
a  practice,  it  was  nevertheless  finally 
fixed  in  the  customs  and  principles  of 
the  people. 


21 


n. 

NATIVISM  IN  LOCAL  POLITICS. 

T^  HE  first  political  flurry  of  Nativism 
•*•  in  the  local  politics  of  New  York 
seems  to  date  from  the  year  1835.  It  is 
associated  with  the  name  of  Samuel  F. 
B.  Morse,  the  inventor  of  the  tele- 
graph. Early  in  1834  he  publisLed 
twelve  letters  in  The  New  York  Obser- 
ver (a  weekly  paper),  over  the  signa- 
ture of  "Brutus."  These  were  after- 
wards republished  under  the  title  "Eor- 
eign  Conspiracy  Against  the  United 
States,"  a  book  much  read  up  to  1860. 
It  appears  that  while  in  Europe  dur- 
ing 1829-32,  Morse  had  heard  of  the 
Leopold  Foundation,  an  Aid  Society  es- 
tablished in  Austria  to  heli)  with  finan- 
c'cA  assistance  th^  missionary  and  poor 
22 


NATIVE  AMERICANISM. 

Catholic  churches  of  the  New  World. 
This  was  the  most  material  fact  in  the 
clangers  Morse  discussed.  The  "Bru- 
tus Letters"  had  an  important  local 
influence.  The  Irish  immigrants  in 
the  city  were  gathering  antagonisms, 
chiefly  on  account  of  their  religion, 
and  the  "Brutus  Letters"  gave  form 
to  the  argument.  A  Protestant  asso- 
ciation was  founded  to  antagonize  the 
Catholics,  and  it  seems  that  on  March 
13,  1835,  one  of  its  meetings  on  Broad- 
way was  disturbed  by  Irish  interrup- 
tion, perhaps  after  the  fashion  com- 
mon at  that  time  of  counter  demon- 
strations at  public  meetings;  but  rath- 
er imprudent  tactics  for  foreigners. 

In  the  fall  election  a  Nativist  com- 
mittee put  lip  Colonel  Monroe  (a  neph- 
ew of  ex-President  Monroe),  for  Con- 
gress, and  the  Whigs  endorsed  him. 
But  the  Democrats,  who  cast  tlu-ee- 
fifths  of  the  vote,  elected  their  ticket. 
In  the  spring  election  of  1836,  the  Na- 
tivists  nominated  Samuel  F.  B.  Morse 
for  mayor,  and  he  received  about  1-, 
500  votes  out  of  a  total  of  over  26,- 
000  cast.  A  Democratic  mayor  was 
elected.  The  Nativists  tried  a  separ- 
ate ticket  again  in  the  fall  elections, 
23 


XATIVE  AMERICANISM. 

with  no  better  success;  but  in  the 
spring  of  1837  they  put  up  Aaron  Clark 
for  mayor,  and  at  the  same  time  drew 
up  an  address  denouncing  the  Irish. 
The  ^^Tiig  party,f  which  had  all  along 
exhibited  a  kindly  interest  in  the  Xa- 
livist  doings,  endorsed  Clark,  and  he 
was  elected  by  3,300  plurality.  The  af- 
fair was  treated  as  a  TVhig  victory,  and 
the  Nativists  disappeared  as  a  separ- 
ate political  activity.  Nativist  senti- 
ment continued,  however,  to  exhibit 
itself  in  petitions  to  the  state  legisla- 
ture and  to  Congress,  praying  for  a 
registry  law  and  an  extension  of  the 
period  of  residence  required^  for  nat- 
uralization to  twenty-one  years. 

In  other  portions  of  the  country  the 
same  sentiment  manifested  itself.  A 
native  American  movement  is  said  to 
have  organized  at  Germantown,  near 
Philadelphia,  in  1837,  growing  out  of 

t  In  New  York  city  the  Irish  vote  was 
cast  largely  with  the  Democratic  party. 
Admiration  for  AndreTT  Jackson,  the  hero 
of  Nev^.'  Orleans  a.nQ  a  man  of  Irish  line- 
age, had  drawn  the  vanguards  of  Irish 
immigration  close  in  sympathy  v»-ith  the 
Democratic  party.  The  politicians  of  that 
party  did  not  fail  to  use  every  means  to 
attach  the  adopted  citizen  to  their  organi- 
zation. 

24 


XA TI YE  A MEBICA XI SM. 

an  election  episode. 

At  Boston  on  Sunday,  June  11,  1837, 
an  engine  company  returning  from  t-. 
fire  came  into  collision  vrith  an  Irisli 
funeral  procession.  The  ensuing  trou- 
ble, which  is  known  in  the  annals  of 
Boston  as  "the  Broad  street  riot," 
was  participated  in  by  fifteen  thousand, 
persons.  The  Irish  quarter  was  sacked, 
and  though  there  were  no  fatalities^ 
many  persons  were  severely  wounded. 
The  intervention  of  the  mayor  at  the 
head  of  a  military  company  quelled 
the  riot.  As  a  result  of  this  affair,  the 
fire  department  was  reorganized  (Win- 
sor's  Boston  HI,  245). 

Boston  had  a  Xativist  mayor,  Thom- 
as Aspinwall  Davis,  in  1845,  as  a  re- 
sult of  a  triangular  contest.  In  the 
following  year  the  control  of  the  city 
reverted  to  the  'WTiigs. 

During  the  presidential  campaign  of 
1840,  the  Whig  central  committee  of 
Maryland  was  moved  to  formally  re- 
pudiate all  sympathy  with  the  Xativist 
journalism  of  General  Duff  Green,  ed- 
itor of  The  Baltimore  Pilot.  The  com- 
mittee declared  that  "the  native  and 
natural  citizens  are  equally  entitled  to 
the  blessings  of  our  government."  Ma- 
25 


NATIVE  AMERICANISM. 

ryland  was,  politically,  a  close  state. 
The  Whigs  carried  the  state  at  the 
ensuing  election.  Similar  action  was 
taken  by  a  large  Whig  public  meeting 
at  Louisville,  Ky.  (October  27,  1840). 
Its  resolutions  recited  that  "a  newspa- 
per called  The  Louisville  Tribune,  re- 
flecting on  the  Catholic  persuasion, 
of  a  most  anti-republican  character,  re- 
cently established  in  this  city,  profess- 
ing to  be  a  Whig  paper,  has  published 
editorials  and  a  communication,  one 
of  which  is  signed  'Native  American,' 
etc.  The  Whigs  as  a  party,  therefore, 
utterly  repudiate  and  denounce  The 
Louisville  Tribune."  (McClusky  Poli- 
tical Text  Book,  pp.  681-2.) 

New  Orleans  felt  the  impulse  also. 
The  "Address  of  the  Louisiana  Native 
American  association,"  issued  in  1839, 
contains  this  rather  ornate  passage: 

"So  long  as  foreigners  entered  in 
moderate  numbers  into  the  states  and 
territories  of  the  United  States  and  be- 
came imperceptibly  merged  and  incor- 
porated into  the  great  body  of  the 
American  people,  and  were  gradually 
imbued  and  indoctrinated  into  the 
principles  of  virtue  and  patriotism, 
which  formerly  animated  the  whole 
26 


NA  Tl  VE  A MERICANI8M. 

American  community,  so  long  their  ad- 
vent was  an  advantage  and  a  benefit  to 
our  coranmnity.  But  when  we  see 
hordes  and  hecatombs  (sic)  of  beings 
in  human  forms,  but  destitute  of  any 
intellectual  aspirations — the  outcast 
and  offal  of  society,  the  pauper,  the  va- 
grant and  the  convict — transported  in 
myriads  to  our  shores,  reeking  with  the 
accumulated  crimes  of  the  whole  civ- 
ilized and  savage  world,  and  inducted 
by  our  laws  into  equal  rights,  immuni- 
ties and  privileges  with  the  noble  na- 
tive inhabitants  of  the  United  States, 
v/e  can  no  longer  contemplate  it  with 
supine  indifference.  We  feel  con- 
strained to  warn  our  countrymen  that 
unless  some  steps  are  taken  to  protect 
our  institutions  from  these  accumu- 
lated inroads  on  oiir  national  character, 
from  the  indiscriminate  immigration 
and  naturalization  of  foreigners,  in 
vain  have  our  predecessors,  whether  na- 
tive or  naturalized,  toiled  and  suffered 
and  fought  and  bled  and  died  to 
achieve  our  liberties  and  establish  our 
hallowed  institutions." 

In  1841,  a  state  convention  was  called 
in  Louisiana  to  form  an  American  Re- 
publican   party.     The    convention    fa- 

27 


XATIVE  AMERICAXISM. 

vored  the  exclusion  of  foreigners  from 
office.  It  exerted  some  influence  in 
the  succeeding  municipal  election  in 
Xew  Orleans.]] 

New  York  city,  in  1840,  had  a  pop- 
ulation of  312,700,  of  whom  not  over  a 
third  were  foreign  born.  The  Catho- 
lic population  of  the  city  possessed 
eight  churches  and  numbered  perhaps 
70,000.  Philadelphia,  in  the  same 
year,  had  a  population  of  258,000,  of 
whom  less  than  sixty  thousand  were 
Catholics.  (Bishop  Kenrick,  in  1840, 
placed  the  entire  Catholic  population 
of  Pennsylvania,  Delaware  and  Wes- 
tern Xew  Jersey  at  120,000.)  Boston, 
with  a  population  in  1844  of  about 
120,000,  had  less  than  30,000  Catholic 
residents.  It  seemed  strange,  in  view 
of  what  has  come  to  pass  in  later  years, 
that  the  presence  in  these  larger  cities 
of  a  foreign  population  not  exceeding 
a  fourth  of  the  whole  population, 
should  have  occasioned  alarm  in    the 

II  Congressman  Eustis,  of  Louisiana,  in 
the  House  of  Representatives,  January  7, 
1856.  claimed  that  Louisiana  was  the  first 
State  whose  Legislature  called  for  an  ex- 
tension of  the  term  of  residence  required 
for  naturalization. 

28 


NATIVE  AMERICANISM. 

minds  of  Americans  during  the  '40's. 
Since  these  days,  the  increased  tide  of 
immigration  has  foreignized,  by  actual 
majorities  (counting  all  of  foreign  par- 
entage), most  of  our  large  cities  and 
even  some  of  our  western  states,  with- 
out the  slightest  danger  to  our  insti- 
tutions or  any  similar  alarm  to  our 
people. 

Had  the  foreigners  and  Catholics  re- 
mained quiescent,  Nativism  might  have 
run  its  course  as  a  milder  protest.  But 
this  was  not  to  be.  The  American  at- 
mosphere v:ould  not  suffer  any  element 
long  to  demean  itself  as  a  subject 
class.  The  colonization  of  the  nine- 
teenth century  challenged,  in  the  name 
of  religious  equality,  the  Protestant  as- 
cendancy established  by  the  colonists 
of  the  seventeenth  century  in  the  laws, 
and  customs,  and  opinions  of  the  sev- 
eral states.  In  Massachusetts,  long  af- 
ter the  adoption  of  the  Federal  con- 
stitution, Congregationialism  was  vir- 
tually the  religion  of  the  state.  In  the 
Carolinas  a  Catholic  could  not  hold  of- 
fice. Other  states,  like  New  Hamp- 
shire, had  similar  sectarian  provisions 
in  their  constitutions  and  statutes. 

Immigration  endangered  this  ascen- 
29 


NATIVE  AMERICANISM. 

dancy,  and  as  soon  as  that  fact  was  ap- 
parent, the  Protestant  pnlpit  became 
alarmed.  The  particular  issue  in 
which  this  clash  of  forces  came  had 
reference  to  the  schools.  Under  the 
New  York  school  law  of  1812,  denom- 
inational schools  received  a  pro  rata 
share  of  the  school  fund  raised  by  the 
state.  But  in  New  York  city  a  pri- 
vate corporation  called  the  Public 
School  society,  gradually  absorbed  all 
the  public  funds  for  that  city.  It 
claimed  to  be  an  unsectarian  body,  and 
declared  that  it  excluded  positive  re- 
ligious instruction  from  its  schools. 
The  Protestant  Scriptures,  however, 
were  read,  and  in  some  cases  comment- 
ed upon.  The  Catholics  presented  a  pe- 
tition to  the  Common  council,  and 
Bishop  Hughes  spoke  in  its  behalf, 
praying  that  eight  Catholic  schools  be 
granted  a  share  of  the  school  fimd 
(October,  1840).  The  Catholics  do  not 
appear  to  have  asked  the  exclusion  of 
the  Bible,  but  prejudice  was  stirred 
upon  the  representation  that  such  was 
their  purpose. 

The    Common    council,    which    was 
Democratic,  rejected  the  bishop's  peti- 
tion after  a  full  hearing,  in  which  the 
30 


! 


NATIVE  AMERICANISM. 

Public  School  society  fought  strenu- 
ously for  its  monopoly.  The  Catholics 
thereupon  carried  their  grievances  to 
the  state  Legislature  at  Albany.  Wil- 
liam H.  Seward  was  then  governor  of 
New  York.  He  had  expressed  himself 
in  favor  of  the  establishment  of  schools 
where  the  foreigners,  now  debarred 
from  public  education  by  religious  pre- 
judices, might  be  instructed  by  teach- 
ers of  their  own  race  and  faith.  For 
twenty  years  (1840-60)  this  idea  of  Se- 
ward's made  him  the  target  of  the  poli- 
tical anti-Catholics  in  New  York  state, 
and  he  reciprocated  that  antagonism  by 
holding  the  major  element  of  the  Whig 
party  intact  as  a  bulwark  against  the 
successive  waves  of  Nativist  and 
Know-Nothing  assimilation.* 

The  Catholic  appeal  to  the  Legisla- 


•  Colonel  A.  K.  McClure,  in  his  "Political 
Recollections,"  a&serts  that  Sev.^ard's  atti- 
tude on  the  school  question  lost  him  the 
nomination  to  the  Presidency  in  1860;  that 
the  leaders  of  the  Republican  party  in 
Pennsylvania,  Ohio  and  Indiana  were  fav- 
orable to  Seward  personally,  but  on  ac- 
count of  his  stand  in  the  New  York  school 
controversy  they  could  not  hope  to  attract 
to  his  candidacy  the  anti-slavery  Know- 
Nothing  vote  in  those  states,  which  were 
regarded  at  the  time  as  doubtful  states. 

31 


NATIVE  AMERICANISM. 

ture  again  stirred  up  a  Xativist  par- 
ty, Samuel  F.  B.  Morse  once  more  oc- 
cupying the  leadership.  All  local  par- 
ties having  taken  sides  with  the  Pub- 
lic School  society  in  the  nomination 
of  candidates  for  the  Legislature  in 
1841,  Bishop  Hughes  decided  to  put  up 
a  Catholic  ticket— the  so-called  ''Car- 
roll Hall"  ticket.  He  did  this  against 
the  vociferous  objections-  of  the  entire 
local  press,  Democratic  as  well  as 
TThig.  The  result!  of  the  election  was 
as  follows: 

Whig  ticket 15,980 

Democratic  ticket 15,690 

Catholic  ticket 2,200 

Nativist  ticket 470 

Anti-Slavery  ticket 120 

It  was  said  that  Bishop  Hughes 
(himself,  if  anything,  a  Whig),  had 
sought  to  show  to  the  Democrats  that 
the  Catholics  held  the  balance  of  pow- 
er in  New  York  city  as  between  the 
V»"liig  and  the  Democratic  parties.  He 
succeeded  in  the  demonstration,  at 
least  to  the  extent  of  defeating  the 
Democratic  ticket,  which  would  other- 
wise have  won.  But  it  seems  that  on- 
ly a  half  or  a   third  of  the   Catholic 

t  See  New  York  Tribune,  Nov.  12,  1841. 
32 


NATIVE  AMERICANISM. 

voters  supported  the  Carroll  Hall  tick- 
et. In  a  Catholic  population  of  70,- 
000,  there  were  at  that  time  probably 
from  5,000  to  7,000  Catholic  voters  in 
New  York  city.|| 

The  following  year  the  Legislature 
at  Albany,  doubtless  through  the  in- 
fluence of  Governor  Seward,  extended 
to  New  York  city  the  provisions  of  the 
general  act  relating  to  common  schools, 
thus  obliterating  the  private  Public 
School  society  corporation,  and  putting 
the  state  and  the  people  in  its  place  as 
a  controlling  power  over  the  city 
schools.  This  was  a  victory,  in  prin- 
ciple, for  Bishop  Hughes,  but  it 
brought  no  funds  to  his  parish  schools. 
The  JvTativist  element  of  all  parties 
combined  for  some  years  in  electing  a 
union  school  ticket. 


II  This  Is  the  only  instance  in  American 
politics  of  a  Catholic  ticket  at  the  polls.  It 
seemed  necessary  at  the  time  to  clear  the 
political  atmosphere.  Of  course  it  did  not 
lack  provocation  either,  in  the  existence  of 
a  menacing'  anti-Catholic  movement. 

33 


III. 

NATIVISM  AT  HIGH  TIDE,  1844. 

'  I  ^  HE  year  1843  saw  a  new  and  better 
-^  organized  spurt  of  Nativism  in 
New  York  city.  The  episode  that  served 
to  arouse  it  was  the  favor  shown  by  the 
Democratic  party  to  the  Irish,  in  re- 
turn for  Irish  support  in  the  April 
(1843)  elections.  Not  only  were  pet- 
ty offices  liberally  bestowed,  but  market 
licenses  were  given  to  foreign-born 
tradesnien.  Heretofore  these  had  been 
(as  in  the  case  of  school  control),  a 
species  of  Nativist  monopoly. 

The  American  Republican  party  was 
formed,§  and  it  came  into  the  fall  elec- 

§  The  follovN'ing  appears  among-  the  decla- 
rations of  the  Nativist  meeting  held  in 
New,  York,  June  10,  1843: 

"Resolved,     That    we    as    Americans   will 

34 


NATIVE  AMERICANISM. 

tioiis  with   a   statement  of  principles, 
among  which  was  the  following : 

"That  through  this  school  law  [the 
legislative  enactment  of  April,  1842] 
there  has  been  a  preconcerted  determin- 
ation, followed  up  by  an  actual  attempt 
in  the  Fourth  ward,  to  put  out  of  our 
schools  the  Protestant  Bible,  and  to 
piit  down  the  whole  Protestant  religion 

never  consent  to  allow  the  government  es- 
tablished by  our  Revolutionary  forefathers 
to   pass  into   the   hands   of  foreigners,   and 
that    while    we    open    the    door    to    the    op- 
pressed of  every  nation   and   offer  a  home 
and  an  asylum,  we  reserve  to  ourselves  the 
right   of   administering  the   government   in 
conformity   with   th©  principles    laid   down 
by  those  who  have  committed  it  to  our  care." 
From  this  time   on  we  hear  much  about 
the  degeneracy  of  Am^erican  local  politics, 
due,  so  it  is  alleged,  to  the  influence  of  the 
foreign-born    voters.      There    has    always 
been   a  strong  suspicion  that  this   opinion 
was    merely   th'e   result    of   Nativist    preju- 
dice.    Bryce   (Volume  II.   of  his  "American 
Commonwealth."    page   241),   says:    "Never- 
theless the   immigi-ants  are   not   so  largely 
responsible  for  the  faults  of  American  poli- 
tics  as  a   stranger  might  be   led,   by  the 
language   of  many  Americans,   to  suppol*. 
There  is  a  disposition  in  the  United  States 
to  use  them,  and  especially  the  Irish,  much 
as    the    cat  is   used   in  the    kitchen,    to   ac- 
count  for   broken    plates   and    food    which 
disappears.    The  cities  have,  no  doubt,  suf- 
fered from  the  immigrants— but  New  York 
was  not  an  Eden  before  the  Irish  came." 
35 


NATIVE  AMERICANISM. 

[therein]  as  being  sectarian."  (Journal 
of  Commerce,  November  4,  1843.) 

The  platform  further  demanded  that 
foreign-born  persons  should  not  be  nat- 
uralized imtil  they  had  resided  here 
twenty-one  years.  The  Nativist  party 
polled  8,690  votes  in  the  November 
election  out  of  a  total  of  37,000.  Its 
strength  appears  to  have  been  drawn 
quite  eqiTally  from  both  parties.  Ham- 
mond, in  his  "Political  History  of  New 
York,"  avers  that  "the  wealth,  talent 
and  respectability  of  the  community" 
went  into  its  ranks.  In  the  ensuing 
election  (April,  1844),  the  Nativist 
party  selected  James  Harper,  of  the 
firm  of  Harper  Brothers,  publishers,  as 
its  candidate  for  mayor.  Both  Demo- 
crats and  Whigs  made  their  customary 
nominations;  but  tLere  was  a  tacit  un- 
derstanding among  the  Whigs  that 
their  support  should  be  thrown  largely 
to  Harper  (who  had  been  a  Whig) . 
Harper  was  electe  I.  The  vote  stood : 
Harper,  24,510;  Coddington  (Dem.), 
20,538;  Franldin  (Vv^hig),  5,297.  The 
Journal  of  Commerce  ^ April  12,  1884), 
estimated  that  the  native  American  vote 
was  made  up  of  14,100  Whigs,  9,700 
Democrats  and  601  new  voters. 
36 


NATIVE  AMERICANISM. 

Harper's  election  was  the  occasion 
for  a  revival  of  the  former  alliance  be- 
tween the  Whigs  and  the  Nativist.  In 
the  fall  election  of  1S44  (which  was  al- 
so a  presidential  election),  the  Whigs 
threw  their  strength  solidly  to  the  iSTa- 
tiyist  local  legislative  ticket,  but  the 
Nativists  did  not  fully  reciprocate. 
The  Nativist  legislative  ticket  was 
elected,  27,440  to  26,230  (Dem.),  but 
Polk,  the  Democratio  candidate  for 
president,  carried  New  York  city  by 
several  thousand  plurality  over  Clay. 
Seward  hcA  openly  disapproved  of  the 
Whig  alliance  with  the  Nativists,  and 
this  experience  strengthened  the  posi- 
tion he  had  taken.  The  Whigs  proceeded 
to  drop  the  Nativists.  At  the  city  elec- 
tion in  April,  1845,  Harper  wa  3  defeat- 
ed and  a  Democratic  mayor  elected, 
the  poll  showing  24,210  Democratic 
votes,  17,480  Nativist  and  7,030  Whig. 
The  Nativists  were  almost  completely 
wiped  off  the  official  roste:-,  electing 
but  one  of  their  candidates,  a  consta- 
ble. They  continued  to  put  up  local 
tickets  until  April,  1847,  but  their 
vote  diminished  from  8,370  in  Novem- 
ber, 1845,  to  2,080  in  April,  1847. 
They  put  up  a  state  ticket  in  1846, 
37 


NATIVE  AMERICANISM. 

whicli  received  an  aggregate  of  6,170 
Totes. 

Bishop  Hughes  in  an  editorial  pub- 
lished February  3,  1844,  in  a  weekly 
paper.  The  Freeman's  Journal,  regard- 
ed as  the  organ  of  the  diocese,  had  al- 
luded to  the  new  party  as  a  movement 
in  'local  politics."  "Many  will  prob- 
ably join  this  party,  who  are  really 
friends  of  foreigners,"  he  said,  "  but 
who,  for  the  moment,  will  coalesce  with 
their  enemies  to  accomplish  some  local 
purpose,  of  which  foreigners  form  no 
part.  The  true  issue  is  for  the  loaves 
and  fishes  of  office,  and  as  but  a  small 
share  of  these,  if  any,  falls  to  the  lot 
of  foreigners,  so,  notwithstanding  the 
abuse  of  their  name,  they  may  consid- 
er themselves  as  scarcely  interested  in 
the  quarrel.  The  true  issue  is  between 
natives  and  natives;  there  let  it  re- 
main." 

The  school  question  was  also  one  of 
the  mainsprings  of  the  Nativist  move- 
ment in  Philadelphia.  In  this  connec- 
tion it  may  be  remarked  that  in  the 
many  subsequent  clashes  with  Protes- 
tant ascendancy,  of  which  the  New 
York  and  Philadelphia  instances  were 
38 


NATIVE  AMERICANISM. 

among  the  earliest,  the  Catholic  con- 
tention was,  ultimately,  almost  every- 
where successful,  because  it  was 
grounded  on  the  logic  of  religious 
equality. 

If  the  Maine  supreme  court  in  1854 
(Donohue  vs.  Richards)  decided  that 
Catholic  pupils  in  the  public  schools 
might  be  compelled  to  read  the  King 
James  Bible,  the  victory  of  sectarian- 
ism was  only  temporary;  the  decision 
of  the  Wisconsin  supreme  court  in 
1890  (Edgerton  Bible  case)  brought  to 
a  climax  a  series  of  educational  rul- 
ings, both  in  law  and  practice,  which 
have  quite  generally  excluded  the  Bible 
from  the  public  schools  and  more  or  less 
eliminated  the  offensive  tone  to  Catho- 
lics of  many  of  the  text  books,  against 
which  there  were  mild  protests  in  1840. 

In  November,  1842,  Bishop  Kenrick 
of  Philadelphia,  while  not  asking  that 
the  Bible  be  excluded  from  the  public 
schools  of  that  city,  petitioned  the 
School  Board  that  Catholic  children  be 
allowed  the  liberty  of  using  the  Catho- 
lic version  where  Bible  reading  was 
prescribed. 

In  January,  1843,  the  Philadelphia 
School  Board  voted  that  no   children 
39 


XATIVE  AMERICANISM. 

whose  parents  objected  to  Bible  read- 
ing be  obliged  to  be  present  at  Bible 
exercises.  Out  of  this  matter  a  con- 
troversy ensued,  and  Bishop  Kenrick, 
on  March  12,  1844,  issued  a  statement 
that  "Catholics  have  not  asked  that  the 
Bible  be  excluded  from  the  public 
schools." 

The  Philadelphia  riots  of  May,  lS4r4, 
are  connected  with  this  episode,  at 
least  in  the  opinion  of  the  grand  jury 
called  to  investigate  the  affair.  The 
grand  jury  attributed  the  riots  to  "the 
efforts  of  a  portion  of  the  community 
to  exclude  the  Bible  from  the  public 
school."  The  Catholics  denied  this 
and  claimed  the  jury  was  packed.  But 
the  charge,  even  as  it  stands,  would 
not  in  our  day  seem  to  justify  or  pro- 
voke rioting  or  incendiarism.  The  dis- 
order arose  over  some  collision  in  the 
streets  as  a  Xative-American  meeting 
was  dispersing  before  a  rain  storm. 
The  riots  which  followed  lasted  for 
three  days.  Though  the  Mayor  was 
knocked  down  in  one  of  the  encounters, 
it  is  probably  true,  as  the  Catholics  al- 
leged, that  there  was  half-heartedness, 
if  not  actual  collusion,  in  the  way  the 
authorities  met  the  disorder.  The  mob 
40 


XA TIVE  AMERICANISM. 

moved  upon  the  Irish  quarter  in  Ken- 
sington and  burned  twenty-nine 
houses.  Next  day  two  Catholic 
churches,  St.  Michael's  and  St.  Au- 
gustine's, were  destroyed  and  a  convent 
set  ablaze.  A  number  of  lives  were 
lost.  Bishop  Kenrick  issued  a  card 
suspending  "the  exercise  of  public  wor- 
ship in  the  Catholic  churches  which 
still  remained  until  it  can  be  resumed 
with  safety  and  we  can  enjoy  our  con- 
stitutional rights  to  v.-orship  God  ac- 
cording to  the  dictates  of  our  consci- 
ence." 

This  was,  at  least,  furnishing  sub- 
ject of  meditation  for  the  thoughtful. 
The  May  riots  were  succeeded  in  July 
by  another  riotous  outbreak.  The  Na- 
tivist  sentiment  profited  by  the  public 
feeling  against  the  foreigners,  which 
had  been  aroused  by  the  events  of  May. 
Their  societies  were  nov.-  established  in 
every  ward  of  the  city.  On  July  4, 
1844,  they  organized  an  elaborate  par- 
ade in  which  4,500  men  and  boys  par- 
ticipated. During  the  succeeding 
days  a  report  became  current  that  anus 
were  hidden  in  St.  Philip  Neri's 
(Catholic)  church.  There  was  founda- 
tion for  this  report  too.  Catholics  had 
41 


NATIVE  AMERICANISM. 

feared  that  the  church  burning  of  May 
might  be  repeated.  They  intended  to 
defend  their  property.  The  collision 
of  July  was  principally  between  the 
militia  and  the  nativist  mobs.  It  re- 
sulted in  seventeen  deaths. 

Nativism  remained  for  some  years 
a  political  power  in  Philadelphia. 
The  local  leader  of  the  party 
was  Lewis  C.  Levin,  by  birth  a 
South  Carolinian,  a  man  of  stout 
build  and  florid  eloquence.  For 
three  terms  he  sat  as  a  representative 
of  the  first  Pennsylvania  district  in 
Congress  where  he  made  many  impas- 
sioned anti-Catholic  speeches.  Levin 
died  in  1860.  Throughout  the  country 
generally,  however,  the  Philadelphia 
riots  gave  Nativism  a  set  back.  The 
popular  verdict  blamed  the  anti-Cath- 
olics. General  Cadwalader,  who  had 
commanded  the  soldiers  during  the 
riots,  some  years  afterwards  stated  in 
a  public  letter  that  the  Nativists  came 
to  be  generally  known  as  the  "the 
church  burners,"  in  the  epithet  parlance 
of  the  day.* 

*Scisco,  "Political  Nativism  in  New 
York,"  page  47,  says:  "The  Philadelphia 
riotS',   nevertheless,  lost  much  sympathj'  to 

42 


XATIVE  AMERICANISM. 

In  New  York,  Bishop  Hughes,  ad- 
monished by  these  events,  took  legal 
advice  as  to  whether  compensation 
could  be  obtained  for  property  destroy- 
ed by  rioters.  Being  advised  in  the 
negative,  he  said:  "Then  the  law  in- 
tends that  citizens  should  defend  their 
own  property."  He  issued  an  fextra 
edition  of  The  Freeman's  Journal, 
calling  on  Catholics  to  defend  their 
churches  with  their  lives.  The  Native- 
Amei-icans,  who  had  called  a  public 
meeting,  revoked  their  call  in  view  of 
thie  action.  Bishop  O'Gorman  ("His- 
tory Catholic  Church,"  p.  375)  tells  us 
that  a  large  Irish  society  in  New  York, 
with  divisions  in  every  district,  re- 
solved that,  in  case  a  single  Catholic 
church  were  destroyed,  to  fire  buildings 
in  all  quarters  and  involve  the  city  in 
a  great  conflagration. 

Though  the  field  of  its  action  was 
mostly  confined  to  local  politics,  the 
Native-American  movement  had  some 
results  in  the  broader  arena  (1830-45). 

"\i\liile  most  of  the  foreign-born  vote 
was  Democratic,  the  Whigs  were    not 

the    cause    of   Nativism,    and    their   occur- 
rence was  deeply  regretted." 

43 


NATIVE  AMERICANISM. 

without  a  share  of  it.  Bishop  Hughes, 
for  instance,  tells  us  that  his  first  vote 
was  cast  for  Henry  Clay.  In  the  cam- 
paign of  1840,  the  Democratic  leaders 
of  New  York  corralled  almost  the  sol- 
id naturalized  vote  by  representing  thai 
Harrison  was  opposed  to  the  "adopted 
citizen."  This  provoked  Whig  resent- 
ment. "Do  we  not  hear  of  the  organ- 
ization of  a  party  against  the  Catho- 
lics ?"  wrote  Seward  to  a  friend  in  1840. 
Some  of  the  "Whig  leaders,  like  Clay, 
Scott  and  Fillmore,  undoubtedly  sym- 
pathized with  the  principles  of  the  Xa- 
tive-American  party.  In  1844  Clay 
wrote  to  a  friend:  "There  is  a  general 
tendency  among  the  Whigs  to  unfurl 
the  banner  of  the  Xative-Americau 
party"  (Von  Hoist  II.,  524).  Scott  in 
The  National  Intelligencer  (December, 
1844),  advocated  the  practical  exclu- 
sion of  all  foreign-bom  persons  from 
the  suffrage.!  Later  he  claimed  that 
the  iLexican  war  had  removed  the  cata- 
ract from  liis  eyes.     (Yon  Hoist,  lY., 

tBro-vSTison  in  his  Quarterly  Re\aew  for 
January,  1845,  refers  disparagingly  to  a 
speech  by  Webster  at  Faneuil  hall,  in 
which  he  thinks  that  this  man  of  "trans- 
cendant  abilities"  pandered  to  the  Xati- 
vist   feeling. 

44 


XATIVE  AMEBICANIS2I. 

158). 

New  York  was  a  pivotal  state  in  the 
Presidential  election  held  in  Novem- 
ber, 1844.  Polk  polled  just  5,106  more 
votes  in  New  York  than  Clay,  and  this 
gave  him  New  York's  thirty-six  elec- 
toral votes,  and  the  Presidency.  Mil- 
lard Fillmore,  in  a  letter  to  Clay,  at- 
tributed the  loss  of  New  York  to 
Catholic  defection  from  the  "Whigs,  oc- 
casioned by  the  affiliation  of  Native- 
Americanism  with  that  party.  Anti- 
Masonry  had  deprived  Clay  of  the 
Presidential  nomination  in  1840,  and 
between  Native-Americanism  and  the 
Liberal  party  he  lost  the  election  in 
1844.  But  the  resentment  of  the  natu- 
ralized voters  was  not  all  due,  proper- 
ly, to  the  "Whigs.  The  aid  of  a  fair 
percentage  of  the  Democratic  party  al- 
ways went  to  the  proscriptive  ticket. 
In  the  fall  election  of  1844  this  Demo- 
cratic contingent,  while  voting  general- 
ly for  the  Polk  electors,  in  Philadelphia 
and  New  York  enabled  the  Native- 
Americans  to  elect  their  local  tickets. 

In  April,  1845,  the  Nativist  move- 
ment claimed  48,000  members  in  New 
York  State  (of  whom  18,000  were  in 
New  York  city),  42,000  in  Pennsyl- 
45 


NATIVE  AMERICANISM^ 

vania,  14,000  in  Massachusetts  and 
6,000  scattered  in  other  states. 
(Kochester  American,  April  26,  1845). 
A  convention  of  the  Native-Americans 
convened  at  Philadelphia  July  4,  1845, 
with  141  delegates  present,  represent- 
ing fourteen  states.  It  adopted  a  na- 
tional platform  and  an  address  to  the 
people.  A  second  national  convention 
met  May  4,  1847,  at  Pittsburg,  with 
eleven  states  represented.  At  its  sec- 
ond session  at  Philadelphia,  Septem- 
ber 10,  1847,  it  recommended  Zachary 
Taylor  for  President. 

Six  Native-American  Congi-es;s- 
men,  (four  from  New  York  and  two 
from  Pennsylvania)  were  elected  to  the 
Twenty-ninth  Congress  (1845).  But  one 
Native- American  Congi-essman  appear- 
ed in  the  Thirtieth  Congress  and  ucnie 
in  the  Thirty-first. 

The  Mexican  war  had  come  and  gone 
(1846-8).  A  great  event  had  set  new 
currents  afloat.  Native-Americnnism 
began  to  disappear.  Both  parties  were 
again  courting  the  naturalized  citizen 
whom  the  Irish  famine  was  sending  to 
our  shores  in  vaster  numbers.  Candi- 
dates were  found  purging  themselves 
from  the  suspicion  of  affiliation  with 

46 


NATIVE  AMERICANISM. 

Nativism.  Even  Scott,  the  Whig  can- 
didate for  President  in  1852,  said 
peccavi.  In  the  lull  which  followed 
the  prostration  of  the  Whigs  a  new 
form  of  the  old  movement  was,  how- 
ever, starting  into  vigorous  growth. 
This  was  Know-Nothingism. 


47 


The  Know-Nothing  Party. 


ORIGIN  AXD  GROWTH. 

THE  Know-Xothing  order  was  the 
outgrowth,  in  form  and  member- 
ship, of  a  number  of  nativist  secret  so- 
cieties, which  came  into  being  during 
the  years  1845-9.  In  Pennsylvania, 
the  order  of  United  American  Mechan- 
ics, which  restricted  its  membership  to 
native-born  Americans,  had  considera- 
ble strength.  The  order  of  Sons  of 
America,  organized  aboiit  the  year 
1845,  at  Philadelphia,  also  acquired  a 
large  following,  and  even  extended  its 
branches  to  New  York.  Pennsylvania 
gave  birth  also  to  the  American  Prot- 
49 


THE  ENOW-NOTHING  PARTY. 

estant  Association,  a  secret  benevolent 
society  composed  of  Protestant  Irish. 
This  association  also  extended  to  New 
York.  In  1853  it  had  several  thousand 
members. 

The  Order  of  United  Americans  was 
established  in  New  York  about  the 
year  1845,  and  it  soon  became  the 
strongest  of  the  nativistifl.  societies. 
At  the  beginning  of  1847,  it  had  about 
2,000  members,  and  in  1848  it  had  ex- 
tended to  Boston  and  organized  itself  at 
points  in  New  Jersey  and  Pennsylva- 
nia. Though  ostensibly  a  social  and 
beneficial  society,  it  now  began  to  be 
active  in  promoting,  in  a  secret  way, 
certain  political  measures^  and  New 
York  politicians  were  not  slow  to  de- 
tect its  influence. 

Meanwhile,  in  the  spring  of  1850, 
Charles  B.  Allen  had  organzied 
the  order  of  "the  Star  Span- 
gled Banner,"  sometimes  known  as  the 
order  of  "the  Sons  of  the  Sires,"  its 
purpose  not  being  specifically  social  and 
benevolent,  like  the  other  nativist  secret 
societies,  but  more  definitely  designed 
to  influence,  by  concerted  action,  local 
elections. 

Early  in  1852,  this  new  secrtit  society 
50 


THE  ENOW-NOTHING  PARTY. 

received  a  large  increase  of  member- 
ship, drawn  mostly  from  the  Order  of 
United  Americans.  It  at  once  began 
to  take  a  hand  in  politics.  And  this 
was  the  beginning  of  the  Know-Noth- 
ing  oi'der.'^ 

Bolh  the  Order  of  United  Americans 
ai.'!  •"''-'  Knovz-Nothing  order,  otherwise 
kno^vTi  as  the  order  of  the  Star  Span- 
gled Banner,  then  began  a  career  of 
rapid  expansion.     In  1856,  the  Order  of 

*So  far  as  primary  sources  of  history 
are  concerned,  we  have  very  little  to  aid 
us  in  tracing  the  course  of  the  Know-Noth- 
ing movement.  If  even  the  records  of  so 
late  a  movement  as  the  American  Protec- 
tive Association  have  been  burned  (as  its 
founder,  H.  F.  Bowers,  informs  me),  what 
can  we  expect  as  to  the  records  of  a  secret 
movement  of  fifty  years  ago?  Scisco  (Po- 
litcal  Nativism  in  New  York,  p.  255),  says: 
"The  great  Know-Nothing  order  has  left 
hardly  a  trace  of  itself  in  the  way  of  rec- 
ords." The  records  of  the  Know-Nothing 
grand  council,  after  passing  from  one 
grand  secretary-  to  another,  have  disap- 
peared. The  private  papers  of  James  W. 
Barker,  for  many  years  the  Know-Nothing 
leader,  and  of  Erastus  Brooks,  a  later 
leader,  cannot  be  found,  or  are  unavail- 
able. Some  of  the  records  of  the  order 
of    the    United    Americans    were    burned. 

Contemporaneous  manuals  and  defenses 
of  the  American  party,  like  the  volumes  of 
Whitney,  Carroll  and  Lee,  seem  to  con- 
ceal  more   than   they    reveal. 

51 


THE  KNOW-NOTHING  PARTY. 

United  Americans  had  extended  to  six- 
teen states,  and  it  had  on  its  rolls  sev- 
eral hundred  thousand  members.  The 
order  of  the  Star  Spangled  Banner,  or 
the  Know-Nothing  order  proper,  had, 
meanwhile,  far  out-stripped  the  Order 
of  United  Americans.  The  name  of 
Thomas  K.  Whitney  is  associated  with 
the  growth  of  the  Order  of  United 
Americans.  He  was  its  grand  sachem 
for  the  state  of  New  York  in  the  year 
1846,  and  again  in  1853.  He  was  also 
the  author  of  a  book  in  defense  of  the 
Know-Nothing  movement. 

The  more  active  political  element  of 
the  Order  of  United  Americans  began 
to  flock  into  the  order  of  the  Star  Span- 
gled Banner  during  the  year  1853. 
The  new  order  began  to  be  active  in 
seeking  to  control  party  caucusses 
and  party  conventions.  Then,  after 
the  old  parties  made  the  nominations, 
the  order  of  the  Star  Spangled  Banner 
proceeded  to  elect  its  ticket  from  the 
Democratic  and  the  Whig  tickets. 

November  10,  1853,  The  New  York 
Tribune  referred  to  the  new  secret  influ- 
ence in  politics,  which  had  been  exert- 
ing itself  for  some  months,  as  "the 
Know-Nothing  order."  The  New  York 
52 


TEE  KNOW-NOTHING  PARTY. 

press  explained,  as  the  reason  for  the 
name,  the  fact  that  members  of  the 
order,  when  questioned,  professed  to 
"know  nothing"  about  it.* 

By  the  fall  of  1853,  the  Know-Noth- 
ing  order  had  organized  branches  in 
New  Jersey,  Pennsylvania,  Maryland, 
Connecticut  and  Massachusetts,  and 
had  extended  as  far  west  as  Ohio. 

While  Charles  B.  Allen  was  the 
founder,  James  W.  Barker  was  the 
man  most  conspicuous  in  the  up-build- 
ing of  the  Know-Nothing  order,  es- 
pecially in  New  York;  and  up  to  1856 
he  was  its  official  head  in  that  state. 
Barker  had  been  a  dry  goods  merchant 
in  New  York  in  the  years  prior  to  1851. 
He  threw  himself  into  the  new  nativist 
movement  with  all  the  zeal  and  energy 
that  he  possessed.     We  are  told    that 

♦Lee  in  his  "History  of  the  American  Par- 
ty," page  200  says:  "Whether  the  Ameri- 
can Associations  are  reallj-  secret  associa- 
tions or  not  Is  a  question  concerning  which 
the  writer  pretends  to  know  nothing."  The 
new  movement  itself  accepted  in  a  certain 
way  the  "Know-Nothing"  appellation. 
Thus  we  find  one  of  its  publications  en- 
titled "The  Know-Nothing  Calendar  and 
True  American  Almanac  for  1856,"  edited 
by  W.  S.  Tisdale,  Esq.;  and  also  "The 
Wide-Awake  Gift  and  Know-Xothing  Tok- 
en for  (1855),"  by  'One  of  'Em.'  " 

53 


TEE  KNOW-NOTHING  PARTY. 

in  1859  he  left  New  York  and  again 
embarked  in  the  dry  goods  business  in 
the  city  of  Pittsburg. 

The  Know-Nothing  order  was  not  a 
mutual  aid  or  beneficial  society,  but  its 
primary  aim  was  political.  It  had  the 
usual  pass-words,  grips  and  ritual  of  a 
secret  society.  There  were  three  de- 
grees with  appropriate  obligations  and 
advantages. 

Those  inducted  into  the  first  degree 
do  not  appear  to  have  been  informed  as 
to  the  name  of  the  order.  They  were 
brought  into  "the  august  presence  of 
Sam."  Their  oath  recited,  among  oth- 
er things,  "that  you  will  not  vote  or 
give  your  influence  for  any  man  for 
any  ofiice  in  the  gift  of  the  people,  un- 
less he  be  an  American-born  citizen, 
in  favor  of  Americans  ruling  America, 
nor  if  he  be  a  Koman  Catholic."  Mem- 
bers of  the  first  degree  were  not  eligi- 
ble for  ofiice  in  the  order,  nor  on  its  po- 
litical tickets.  Members  of  the  second 
degree  took  an  oath,  one  of  the  obliga- 
tions of  which  recited  "that  if  it  may 
be  done  legally,  you  will,  when  elected 
or  appointed  to  any  official  station  con- 
ferring on  you  the  power  to  do  so, 
64 


THE  ENOW-NOTHING  PARTY. 

remove  all  foreigners,  aliens  or  Ro- 
man Catholics  from  office  or  place,  and 
that  you  will,  in  no  case,  appoint  such 
to  any  office  or  place  in  your  gift;  you 
do  also  promise  and  swear  that  this 
and  all  other  obligations  which  you 
have  previously  taken  in  this  order, 
shall  ever  be  kept,  through  life,  sacred 
and  inviolate." 

These  extracts  are  from  the  ritual 
said  to  be  revised  by  the  national  coun- 
cil held  in  Cincinnati  on  November 
15,  1854.  There  were  earlier  publica- 
tions of  the  oaths  varying  in  their 
texts,  but  quite  similar  in  their  gen- 
eral antagonism  to  naturalized  citizens 
and  Catholics* 

The  third  degree,  as  revised  by  the 
national  council  November,  1854,  was 
the  so-called  "Union  degree,"  pledging 
members  to  support  the  ties  which  bind 
together  the  states  of  the  union  and 
to  oppose  all  men  and  measures  adverse 

*The  constitution  and  ritual  of  the  Amer- 
ican party  are  publiElied  in  full  in  N.  W. 
Cluskey's  "Political  Text  Book  and  En- 
cyclopedia" (1858)  pp.  55-68.  Also  in  Coop- 
er's "American  Politics"  (1882)  p.  57.  Scis- 
co's  account  of  the  Know-Nothing  de- 
grees and  ritual  is  drawn  largely  from 
the   newspapers    of   the   daj\ 

55 


THE  KNOW-NOTHING  PARTY. 

to  the  union,  and  to  vote  for  third  or 
union  degree  members  of  the  order  in 
preference  to  all  other  candidates  for 
political  office. 

The  basis  of  the  EJaow-jSTothing  or- 
ganization was  the  ward  or  district 
council.  In  the  large  cities  there  was 
a  superior  council  made  up  of  delegates 
from  the  ward  covmcils.  The  "grand 
council"  was  the  state  council  made  up 
of  three  delegates  from  each  council 
of  the  order  within  the  state.  The  na- 
tional council,  which  was  the  supreme 
authority  in  the  order,  was  made  up 
of  delegates  from  various  states  in 
which  the  order  existed  on '  a  basis 
proportionate  to  the  state  membership. 

The  Know-Nothing  order  sought  to 
keep  from  outsiders  not  only  the  iden- 
tity of  its  membership,  but  even  the 
fact  of  its  existence.  Its  notices  of 
meeting,  or  calls  for  concert  of  action 
were  bits  of  paper  cut  in  different 
shapes  or  varying  in  color  for  different 
puiTDOses. 

The  leading    circumstances    and  in- 
fluences    which     contributed     to     the 
growth  of    the    Know-Nothing    move- 
ment may  be  briefly  indicated  as  fol- 
66 


THE  KXOW-XOTHIXG  PARTY. 

lows: 

(1)  Undoubtedly,  the  nativist  sen- 
timent, about  which  the  whole  move- 
ment swung,  not  only  gave  the  party 
its  form,  but  in  a  large  degree  was  the 
cohesive  influence  which  held  together 
the  principal  element  of  its  member- 
ship. 

(2)  The  movement  was  launched 
after  the  overwhelming  Whig  defeat  of 
1852.  That  election  seemed  to  many 
the  end  of  all  hope  for  the  Whig  par- 
ty; the  time  for  it  and  its  friends  to 
quit  the  political  field.  There  ensued 
also  a  lessening  of  the  ties  of  allegiance 
to  party  among  the  northern  Demo- 
crats, due  to  the  subserv^iency  of 
Pierce's  administration  to  the  slavocra- 
cy.  The  thousands  of  voters  cast 
adrift,  so  to  speak,  from  their  party 
affiliations,  were  easily  attracted  by  the 
standards  of  the  new  movement.  Had 
the  Republican  party  been  launched  as 
early  as  1853  or  1854,  its  sails  might 
have  been  filled  with  the  new  breeze, 
but  as  it  was  not  there,  the  Know-Xoth- 
ing  movement  had  the  chance  of  the 
hour  all  to  itself. 

(3)  The  attractiofi  of  the  secret  so- 
ciety and  the  mystery  of  the  movement 

57 


TEE  KXOW-XOTHIXG  PARTY. 

undoubtedly  won  to  the  Know-Nothing 
party  thousands  of  Americans  who  had 
no  special  devotion  to  its  more  fanati- 
cal purpose. 

(4)  Its  growth  in  the  south  and  its 
absorption  there  of  the  Whig  party, 
were  altogether  matters  of  political  cal- 
culation. The  southern  "WTiigs  thought 
that  the  sweep  which  the  new  party 
had  won  (1854-5)  in  the  middle  and 
Xew  England  states,  promised  a  vic- 
tory at  the  aprroaching  presidential 
election  in  1856.  The  southern  Whigs 
thought  they  were  getting  on  the  load- 
ed wagon.  Except  in  Baltimore,  Louis- 
ville and  Xew  Orleans,  there  was,  south 
of  Mason  and  Dixon's  line,  little  chance 
for  collision  with  foreign-born  citizens, 
as  few  of  them  had  settled  there. 
Southern  politicians,  however,  might 
reason  themselves  opposed  to  foreign 
immigration,  inasmuch  as  coniining 
itself  almost  entirely  to  the  north,  it 
swelled  the  congressional  representa- 
tion of  the  northern  states. 

(6)  Another  element  drawn  into 
the  EJnow-jSTothing  party,  especially  the 
latter  years  of  its  existence,  consisted 
of  those  who  preferred  to  evade  the  sla- 
very question,  the  "dough-faces,"  so- 
58 


TEE  KNOW-NOTHING  PARTY. 

called,  in  the  political  parlance  of  tha 
times, — those  who  relied  upon  the  con- 
stitution and  who  proclaimed  their  de- 
votion to  the  union,  vainly  supposing 
that  by  taking  such  a  stand  they  could 
postpone  the  irrepressible  conflict  on 
the  slavery  issue.  The  American  par- 
ty, virtually  straddled  the  slavery  ques- 
tion :  and  this  attitude  undoubtedly  at- 
tracted to  its  ranks  thousands  of  those 
who  wished  to  take  middle  ground.  In 
its  last  years,  so  far  as  it  existed  as  a 
power  in  the  politics  of  the  country,  it 
was  not  a  middle  state  party,  but  a  bor- 
der state  party. 


r9 


n. 

HIGH   TIDE    (1854-5). 

IN  his  history  of  the  Rise  and 
Fall  of  the  Slave  Power  (chap- 
ter 32),  Henry  Wilson,  who  had 
himself  joined  the  Know-Nothing 
order,  says:  "In  the  year  1863,  a  se- 
cret order  was  organized  by  a  few  men 
in  New  York  city.  Its  professed  pur- 
pose was  to  check  foreign  influence, 
purify  the  ballot  box  and  rebuke  the  ef- 
fort to  exclude  the  Bible  from  the  pub- 
lic schools."  Scisco,  a  more  careful 
historian,  at  least  in  the  matter  of 
dates,  (Political  Nativism,  p  97),  re- 
ports : 

"By  May  1,  1853,  there  existed  in 
New  York  state  fifty-four  scattered 
bodies,  most  of  which  were  located  in 
New  York  city  or  in  the  counties  lying 
adjacent,  where  Nativistic  sentiment 
had  been  fostered  by  the  O.  U.  A.  and 
60 


THE  KNOW-NOTHING  PARTY. 

other  Nativistic  societies.  The  spring 
elections  of  1854  gave  opportunities  for 
the  rural  bodies  to  use  their  power,  but 
nowhere  does  their  presence  seem  to 
have  attracted  notice  except  in  New 
York  and  Westchester  counties."* 

But  local  elections  in  the  early 
months  of  1854,  in  several  adjoining 
states  showed  that  the  order  was  not 

♦Whitney,  in  his  "Defence  of  the  Ameri- 
can Policy,"  (p.  284),  says  that  state  coun- 
cils of  the  order  of  the  United  Americans 
were  organized  in  New  York,  New  Jersey, 
Maryland,  Connecticut,  Massachmsetts, 
Pennsylvania  and  Ohio  during  the  months 
April  to  December,  1853;  in  Washington.  D. 
C,  New  Hampshire,  Indiana,  Rhode  Island 
and  Maine  during  the  months  January  to 
April,  1854;  in  Illinois,  Michigan.  Iowa  and 
Wisconsin  from  May  to  September,  1854. 
State  councils  were  organized  in  the  fol- 
lowing southern  states  chiefly  during  the 
latter  part  of  1854:  Alabama.  Georgia, 
North  Carolina,  South  Carolina,  Kentucky. 
Missouri,  Tennessee,  "Virginia,  Delaware. 
Mississippi,  Texas.  Florida,  Arkansas  and 
Louisiana.  In  the  fall  of  1854  state  councils 
were  organized  in  California  and  Oregon. 
A  state  council  was  formed  in  Minnesota 
in  May,  1855,  and  about  the  same  time  in 
New  Mexico,  Kansas  and  Nebraska.  Thus, 
(says  Whitney)  ,  in  about  three  years  from 
the  organization  cf  the  first  counf'I  th'  or- 
der was  organized  in  every  state  and  terri- 
tory in  the  Union,  "numbering  In  its  mem- 
bership at  least  one  and  one  half  million 
legal  voters." 

61 


TEE  EXO}y-XOTniXG  PARTY. 

only  widely  diffused,  but  so  numerical- 
ly strong,  as  to  indicate  that  it  had 
been  organized  for  some  time  in  these 
localities.  There  is  some  authority  for 
the  statement  that  was  introduced  in 
Baltimore  in  December,  1852.  Salem 
(in  January),  Worcester  and  several 
other  Massachusetts  towns  were  car- 
ried by  its  silent  influence  in  the  spring 
election  of  1854.  At  Philadelphia,  it 
surprised  the  Democrats,  (May,  1854), 
by  electing  the  Whig  candidate  for  May- 
or, Conrad,  by  eight  thousand  plurality. 
Mayor  Conrad  proceeded  openly  to  affili- 
ate with  the  American  party.  About  the 
same  time  Washing-ton  went  under  the 
Know-Xothing  yoke  and  Baltimore 
followed. 

In  1853-4  the  Know-Nothing  par- 
ty acted  largely  upon  the  following 
formally  adopted  policy: 

"Rule  Nine:  Whenever  it  shall  be 
deemed  necessary  for  the  order  to  aid 
in  the  choice  of  men  for  public  office 
through  the  suffrages  of  the  people,  it 
chall  be  the  duty  of  each  executive  com- 
mittee to  call  together  the  members  of 
the  Order  in  their  district  prior  to  the 
usual  primary  elections  or  nominations, 
and  determine  upon  suitable  candidates 
62 


THE  EXO^Y-XOTHING  PARTY. 

of  each  party  or  either,  as  they  may  de- 
termine. It  will  be  the  duty  of  the 
members  to  assemble  at  the  times  and 
places  of  holding  the  primary  meetings 
of  such  party  or  parties,  and  there  use 
their  influence  in  obtaining  the  nom- 
ination of  the  candidates  they  have  se- 
lected. If  the  nominations  are  secured 
and  ratified  our  cause  will  triumph, 
whichever  party  may  be  successful. 
Should  the  members  of  the  Order  nom- 
inate or  select  candidates  already  in 
the  field,  nominated  by  on©  party  only, 
it  will  be  the  duty  of  every  brother  to 
sustain  that  selection  independent  of 
any  party  consideration."  (Scisco  Pol- 
itical Nativism,  p  80.) 

In  the  congressional  elections  of  1851 
— at  which  time  the  new  power  in  poli- 
tics became  the  sensation  of  the  hour — 
this  rule  was  quite  generally  followed. 
The  Know-Xothings — throughout  the 
north — supported  Whig,  Eepublicans 
and  anti-Xebraska  Democratic  candi- 
dates for  congress,  who  were  privately 
pledged  to  so-called  "American  ideas.'' 

When  the  congress  thus  elected  met  for 

its  first  session  in  December,  1855,  there 

were  over  a  hundred  congressmen  from 

the    north    classified    as    Eepublicans; 

63 


THE  KNOW-NOTHING  PARTY. 

they  voted  for  the  Republican  candi- 
date for  speaker,  N.  P.  Banks,  but  Hor- 
ace Greeley,  (writing  at  the  time  to 
Charles  A.  Dana,)  said: 

''The  majority  of  the  Banks  men 
are  now  members  of  Know-jSTothing 
councils,  and  some  twenty  or  thirty  of 
them  actually  believe  in  the  swindle. 
Half  the  Massachusetts  delegation, 
two-thirds  that  of  Ohio,  and  nearly  all 
that  of  Pennsylvania  are  Know-Noth- 
ings  this  day.  We  shall  get  them  grad- 
ually detached."  (Quoted  in  Rhodes 
History  of  the  United  States,  Vol.  II. 
p.  111.) 

The  manner  in  which  the  new  power 
in  politics  set  the  tongue  of  the  nation 
wagging  over  its  entry  into  the 
arena  was  not  through  the  silent 
influence  it  exerted  in  selecting 
congressmen,  but  by  the  showing  it 
made  with  candidates  of  its  own 
for  governor  in  New  York  and  Massa- 
chusetts. Its  candidate  for  governor 
in  New  York  (in  the  fall  of  1854),  was 
a  man  little  known,  and  no  open  cam- 
paign work  was  done  in  his  behalf,  nor 
did  any  influential  paper  support  him. 
Its  candidate  for  governor  in  Massa- 
chusetts was  a  broken  down  Whig  poli- 
64 


TEE  EXOW-XOTHIXG  PARTY. 

tician,  whose  appearance  in  the  cam- 
paign was  referred  to  by  one  of  the 
leading  Boston  dailies  as  a  joke. 

To  the  surprise  of  everybody,  it  poll- 
ed 122,000  votes  for  its  candidate  for 
governor  of  New  York.  Seymour,  the 
Democratic  candidate,  had  156,495 
votes,  and  Clarke,  the  "Whig  candidate, 
who  was  elected,  had  156,804.  In  ilas- 
sachusetts,  Henry  J.  Gardner,  the 
Know-Nothing  candidate  was  elected 
governor  by  50,000  majority,  and  the 
Know-Nothings  elected  both  houses  of 
the  Legislature  almost  to  a  man.  Del- 
aware was  also  carried  by  the  E[iiow- 
Nothings. 

These  victories  greatly  accelerated 
the  numerical  growth  of  the  order  in 
the  north  and  caused  it  to  spread  like 
wild  fire  through  the  south. 

By  March,  1855,  J.  W.  Barker,  the 
head  of  the  order  in  New  York,  re- 
ported that  there  were  nine  hundred 
and  sixty  councils  of  the  American  par- 
ty in  his  state  alone.  Its  prospects 
were  such  that  its  success  in  the  com- 
ing presidential  election  was  seriously 
canvassed.  The  Worcester  Evening 
Journal  claimed  that  it  would  sweep 
the  north  and  carry  there  more  than 
65 


THE  EXOW-XOTHIXG  PARTY. 

enough  electoral  votes  to  secure  the 
presidency.  The  New  York  Herald 
about  the  same  time,  (cited  by  Hamble- 
ton,  History  of  the  Political  Campaign 
of  Virginia  in  1855,  page  251),  editor- 
ially declared  that  the  American  party 
would  triumph  in  the  coming  presi- 
dential election  if  it  could  divest  it- 
self of  its  abolitionist  handicap. 

The  Herald  estimated  the  Know- 
Nothing  votes  at  1,375,000.  Henry  Wil- 
son thinks  they  numbered  not  less  than 
1,250,000. 

Viewing  this  episode  in  American 
politics,  thirty  years  after,  Bryce,  the 
English  historian  (American  Common- 
wealths II.  p.  291),  is  moved  to  say: 

"They  [The  Americans]  are  a 
changeful  people.  The  Native  Ameri- 
can, or  so-called  Know-Nothing  par- 
ty, had,  in  two  years  from  its  founda- 
tion, become  a  tremendous  force  rising, 
and  seeming  likely  for  a  time  to  carry 
its  own  presidential  candidate.  In 
three  years  more  it  was  dead  without 
a  hope  of  revival." 

But  shrewd  American  political  lead- 
ers, even  while  Know-Nothingism  was 
at  its  high  tide  had  forecasted  its  early  ■ 
disruption.     Greeley's  famous  dictum: 
66 


THE  KNOW-NOTHING  PARTY. 

"It  [Know-Nothingism]  would  seem 
as  devoid  of  the  elements  of  persistence 
as  an  anti-cholera  or  anti-potato  rot 
party"  was  written  long  prior  to  1856. 

Though  the  mortal  hurts  that  the 
Know-Nothing  movement  received  had 
been  dealt  in  May  and  June,  1855,  it 
still  appeared  to  be  ascendant  in  the 
fall  elections  of  that  year.  It  carried 
Massachusetts,  New  Hampshire,  Khode 
Island  and  Connecticut,  electing-  the 
governors  and  legislatures  in  all  these 
states  and  it  elected  the  minor  state  of- 
ficers voted  for  in  the  New  York  state 
election.  It  also  elected  its  candidates 
for  governor  in  Kentucky  and  Califor- 
nia. It  carried  the  legislature  in  Mary- 
land and  elected  some  minor  candidates 
on  the  ticket  which  it  put  up  in  Texas. 
In  Virginia,  Alabama,  Louisiana, 
Georgia,  Mississippi  and  Texas  it  was 
beaten  only  by  a  close  vote.  The  Dem- 
ocrats retained  these  states  by  majori- 
ties ranging  from  2,000  to  10,000. 

Meanwhile  there  occurred  the  signal 
defeat  of  the  Know-Nothing  ticket  iu 
the  Virginia  state  election  of  May, 
1855  and  the  split  over  the  slavery  issue 
in  the  Philadelphia  convention  of  the 
67 


TEE  KNOW-NOTHING  PARTY. 

American  party  in  June,  1855.  These 
two  events,  together  with  the  rise  of  the 
Republican  party,  presaged  the  rapid 
decline  of  the  Know-Nothing  move- 
ment. 

Virginia  was  a  debatable  state — 
usually  Democratic,  but  always  so 
on  a  narrow  margin.  The  state 
elections  of  1855  were  to  deter- 
mine whether  the  American  par- 
ty in  absorbing  the  Whig  party  had 
strengthened  or  weakened  the  opposi- 
tion to  the  Democratic  party  in  the 
south.  It  was  a  very  bitter  struggle. 
The  Democratic  candidate  for  Gover- 
nor, Henry  A.  Wise,  made  a  vigorous 
denunciation  of  Know-Nothingism  the 
feature  of  his  campaign.  He  went  from 
one  end  of  the  state  to  the  other,  deliv- 
ering fifty  speeches  during  the  canvass. 
It  was  one  of  the  record  campaigns  of 
the  time.  The  attention  of  the  whole 
country  was  drawn  to  this  election. 
Great  sums  of  money  were  wagered  up- 
on the  result.  Wise  was  elected  by  10,- 
000  majority. 

Commenting  on  the  Virginia  elec- 
tion, the  iSTew  York  Tribune  of  May 
29,  1855,  said  that  it  "had  rung  the 
knell"  of  Know-Nothingism  in  the 
68 


THE  KNOW-NOTHING  PARTY. 

South.  It  was  reasoned  that  as  a  vote 
getter,  the  new  party  could  not  do  much 
better  in  the  slave  states  than  the  old 
Whig  party  had  done. 

Following  this  reverse  came  the  split 
in  the  National  Council  of  the  Know- 
Nothing  party  which  met  at  Philadel- 
phia on  June  5,  1855.  The  slavery  is- 
sue had  to  be  met  in  some  way  and  a 
committee  on  resolutions  had  the  sub- 
ject up  for  three  days  discussion.  Fin- 
ally the  majority  of  the  committee  rec- 
ommended that  Congress  ought  not  to 
prohibit  slavery  in  any  territory  and 
that  it  had  no  power  to  exclude  any 
state  from  coming  into  the  Union,  be- 
cause the  state  constitution  recognized 
slavery.  Delegates  from  thirteen  free 
states  brought  in  a  minority  report  and 
another  three  days  discussion  followed, 
Henry  Wilson  leading  the  anti-slavery 
forces;  but  the  Southern  view  triumph- 
ed by  a  vote  of  80  to  59.* 

Thereupon  the  delegates  from  Maine, 
New  Hampshire,  Vermont,  Massachu- 
setts, Connecticut,  Rhode  Island,  Ohio, 

*B.  B.  Bartlett,  of  Kentucky,  superseded 
J.  W.  Barker  of  New  York,  a»  President  of 
the  order,  although  Barker,  who  wa^'  a 
candidate  for  re-election,  trimmed  to  the 
southern  view   of  the  slavery   issue. 

69 


TB^  KXOW-WOTHJme  PAMTF. 

-lii^y.'fi.  MidogBB,  miBois,  Iqwa  and 
-r*  ifce  OBaDnaBiiaBL 


i3Bned.  an 


^ 


ni. 

DIST^EBAyCEA^^:)   ACEI3I0^'T. 


o 


,XE  of  the  i:i:ema:  troubles  of  the 
Catholic  Ch-ireh  in  the  U-itei 
States  during  the  year  5ub=e3-ient  to 
1520,  was  the  "trustee'"  system,  where- 
by the  lay  trustees  of  many  of  the  con- 
gregations assumed  to  a  le^  or  greater 
extent  the  authority  to  accept  or  re- 
ject the  priests  sent  to  minister  over 
the  congregation  by  the  bishop,  and  to 
regulate  the  affairs  of  the  parish  in  a 
manner  that  sometimes  bron^t  them 
into  collision  with  the  epia»pal  au- 
thority. Out  of  this  conflict  grew  two 
incidents  which  gave  the  Know-Xoth- 
ing  moTement  a  decided  impetus. 

The  Pope  sent  Archbishop  Bedini 
as  papal  nuncio  to  Brazil  in  1853,  and 
because  of  some  troubles  with  church 
trustees  in  Buffalo  and  Philadelphia, 
Msgr.  Bedini  was  requested  by  the 
71 


THE  KNOW-NOTHING  PARTY. 

Pope  to  visit  the  United  States  on  his 
way  and  endeavor  to  adjust  these  dif- 
ficulties. He  called  on  President 
Pierce  at  Washington  bearing  a  let- 
ter, the  intent  of  which  was  to  give 
him  standing  as  one  of  the  diplomatic 
corps.  At  that  time  the  United  States 
had  a  minister  accredited  to  the  Pope, 
as  temporal  ruler  of  the  Papal  states, 
and  there  could  be  no  objection,  in  in- 
ternational law,  to  the  Pope  accredit- 
ing a  diplomatic  representatives  of  his 
own  to  the  United  States.  However, 
objection  was  interposed  by  the  Amer- 
ican state  department  to  the  reception 
of  Msgr.  Bedini  as  a  diplomatic  agent 
on  the  ground  that  he  was  not  a  lay- 
man. 

There  was  then  in  the  United  States 
an  ex-monk  (a  Barnabite)  from  Italy 
named  Gavazzi,  delivering  about  the 
country  such  lectures  as  a  typical  "ex- 
priest"  is  in  the  habit  of  presenting  to 
the  credulous  American  Protestant. 
Gavazzi  had  assailed  Bedini,  calling 
attention  to  his  conduct  as  papal  gov- 
ernor of  Bologna  during  the  troublous 
times  of  1848,  and  his  severity  towards 
the  revolutionists.  The  American  press 
was  inclined  to  assist  the  anti-Bedini 
72 


TEE  KNOW-NOTHING  PARTY. 

feeling  aroused  by  Gavazzi;  and  un- 
friendly crowds  awaited  the  papal 
nuncio's  coming  in  various  cities.  At 
Cincinnati,  especially,  there  was  a 
threatening  demonstration,  a  howling 
mob  of  two  thousand  people  moving 
upon  the  house  of  the  archbishop.  The 
militia  were  called  out,  and  except  for 
this  and  the  prompt  action  of  local  au- 
thorities, incendiarism  and  murder 
would  have  resulted,  for  there  were 
leaders  desirous  of  making  an  exam- 
ple out  of  the  incident  b;-  hanging 
Msgr.  Bedini.  In  some  places,  as  in 
Baltimore,  where  he  was  hanged  in 
effigy,  he  was  obliged  to  conceal  his 
presence.  He  left  the  country  with- 
out settling  the  disputes  in  question. 

The  other  incident  was  a  discussion 
between  Senator  Brooks  of  the  New 
York  Legislature  and  Bishop  Hughes 
(who  signed  himself  "►J^John,  bishop 
of  the  province  of  New  York") . 
Brooks  made  some  extravagant  asser- 
tions as  to  the  value  of  Catholic  church 
property,  incident  to  the  discussion  of 
a  bill  pending  in  the  legislature, 
v.diich  sought  to  regulate  the  tenure 
thereof.  The  measure  advocated  by 
Senator  Brooks  was  passed. 
73 


THE  KXOW-XOTHIXa  PARTY. 

It  provided  that  no  title  to  real 
property  could  be  conveyable  or  de- 
scendible by  an  ecclesiastic  to  his  suc- 
cessor in  office  (Laws  of  1855,  Chapter 
230).  The  intent  of  the  measure, 
doubtless,  was  to  compel  Catholic  bish- 
ops to  divest  themselves  of  the  title 
to  church  property,  and  to  vest  the 
same  in  civil  corporations.  Because  of 
so  many  difficulties  with  lay  trustees, 
this  plan  was  obnoxious  to  them.  Sub- 
sequently, in  the  history  of  the  Cath- 
olic Church,  a  policy  in  favor  of  plac- 
ing all  church  property  under  protec- 
tion of  legal  incorporation  was,  how- 
ever, adopted.  In  the  Third  Plenary 
council  of  Baltimore  this  change  was 
urged  by  the  bishops.  In  1863,  a  spe- 
cial act  for  the  incorporation  of  Cath- 
olic church  property  was  placed  upon 
the  Xew  York  statutes  (ch.  45,  Laws  of 
1S63).  At  present,  uncer  the  laws  of 
several  of  the  states.  Catholic  bishops 
are  either  authorized  to  act  as  corpor- 
ations sole,  for  the  purpose  of  hold- 
ing real  estate,  or  the  Xew  York  sys- 
tem for  the  incorporation  of  the  local 
churches  with  the  bishop,  the  vicar- 
general,  the  pastor  and  two  laymen  as 
the  board  of  directors,  is  followed. 


THE  EXOW-XOTEIXG  PARTY. 

The  riotous  events  which  signalized 
the  visit  of  Archbishop  Bedini  contin- 
ued during  the  ensuing  year,  largely 
excited  by  anti-Popery  street  preach- 
ers. The  "Angel  Gabriel,"  an  ec- 
centric Scotch  anti-Popery  speaker, 
was  at  work  in  New  England  in  1851, 
and  numerous  anti-Catholic  distur- 
bances resulted.  A  Know-Xothing  mob 
made  an  attack  upon  the  Irish  quarter 
in  Chelsea.  In  June,  1854,  the  Cath- 
olic chapel  at  Coburg  was  burned.  In 
the  early  part  of  July,  the  Dorchester 
Catholic  chapel  was  blown  up  by  the 
Know-Nothings.  A  little  Catholic 
church  at  Bath,  in  Maine,  was  burned 
to  the  ground.  A  mob  paraded  the 
streets  of  Manchester,  N.  H.,  tore  the 
American  flag  from  the  priest's  house 
and  wrecked  the  interior  of  the  Cath- 
olic church.  At  Ellsworth,  Me.,  Fath- 
er Bapst,  the  Catholic  priest,  was  tak- 
en from  his  dwelling  and  tarred  and 
feathered. 

These  events  excited  Catholic  ap- 
prehension in  all  parts  of  the  country, 
and  the  business  of  guarding  the 
Catholic  churches  from  incendiarism 
and  mob  violence  became  a  serious  pur- 
pose with  them.  At  Providence,  E.  I., 
75 


THE  KNOW-NOTHING  PARTY. 

in  the  same  year,  a  Know-Nothing  mob, 
led  by  a  notorious  criminal,  attacked 
the  Convent  of  Mercy,  but  the  damage 
was  slight,  as  the  Catholics  rallied  for 
the  protection  of  the  institution.  Au- 
gust 7  and  8,  St.  Louis  was  the  scene 
of  a  riot  precipitated  by  the  Know- 
Nothings,  which  resulted  in  ten 
deaths  and  the  destruction  of  a  number 
of  houses  of  Catholics.  The  election 
riots  at  Baltimore,  and  "Bloody  Mon- 
day" at  Louisville  will  be  elsewhere 
noted.  At  Washington  a  Know-Noth- 
ing mob  forced  its  way  into  a  shed 
near  the  Washington  monument  and 
captured  a  block  of  marble,  taken 
from  the  temple  of  Concord  at  Rome, 
which  had  been  sent  by  the  Pope  as 
a  tribute  to  be  used  in  the  monument 
then  being  erected  to  Washington. 
This  papal  gift  was  thrown  into  the 
Potomac. 

One  of  the  earliest  outcroppings  of 
Know-Nothingism  in  New  York  trans- 
pired over  the  case  of  a  street  preach- 
er named  Daniel  Parsons,  who  had 
been  indulging  in  bitter  anti-Popery 
speeches  on  Sundays  about  the  wharves 
and  docks.  The  authorities  placed  him 
under  arrest.  Immediately  there  was 
76 


TEE  KNOW-NOTHING  PARTY. 

a  movement  of  protest  from  the  Know- 
Nothings.  A  great  meeting  was  called 
in  the  City  Hall  park.  Thousands  were 
present,  and  James  W.  Barker,  the 
Know-Nothing  leader,  presided.  Par- 
sons was  released  and  went  on  with  his 
work. 

On  the  first  Sunday  of  June,  1854, 
an  anti-Catholic  preacher  was  escorted 
through  Brooklyn  by  a  Know-Nothing 
mob  of  5,000.  This  no-Popery  demon- 
stration collided  with  an  Irish  mob, 
and  a  free  fight  ensued.  On  the  fol- 
lowing Sunday  the  disturbance  was  re- 
newed. 

During  the  spring  of  1854,  a  yotmg 
man  named  Patten,  organized  in  New 
York  a  nativist  secret  society  for 
younger  men.  They  were  known  as  the 
Order  of  the  American  Star,  and  some- 
times as  The  Wide-Awakes,  from  their 
rallying  cry.  This  organization  at- 
tended to  all  street  disturbances  on  be- 
half of  the  order.  Their  white  felt 
"wide-awake"  hats  were  recognized  as 
the  insignia  of  their  belligerant  pur- 
pose. 

In   Massachusetts,   one   of   the    first 
acts    of   the   Know-Nothing    governor, 
Gardner,  in  1855,  was  to  disband    all 
77 


TEE  KNOW-NOTHING  PARTY. 

militia  companies  in  which  foreigners 
predominated.  These  included  six 
Irish-American  companies,  the  Colum- 
bus, Webster  and  Shields  National 
guards  of  Boston,  Jackson  guards  of 
Lowell,  Union  guards  of  Lawrence  and 
Jackson  guards  of  Worcester. 

All  through  the  years  1853  and  1854 
the  anti-Catholic  propaganda  was  fed 
by  a  remarkable  crop  of  sensational 
sermons,  pamphlets  and  novels,  and  the 
republication  of  numerous  works  )f 
evangelical  bigotry  dating  from  the 
epoch  of  Catholic  emancipation  (1829  \ 

In  many  places  throughout  the  north 
the  children  of  Irish  parentage  attend- 
ing the  common  schools,  were  subjected 
during  these  years  to  various  kinds  of 
petty  persecution.  On  the  school 
grounds  they  were  hooted  as  "Paddies," 
text-books  were  utilized  to  disparage 
their  religion,  but  the  most  usual  form 
of  annoyance  had  reference  to  Bible 
reading.  Numerovis  cases  of  this  kind 
went  into  the  courts;  that  of  Donohue 
vs.  Richards,  which  transpired  at  Ells- 
worth, Me.,  in  1854,  where  a  Catholic 
pupil  was  subjected  to  corporal  punish- 
ment for  declining  to  read  the  Protes- 
tant scriptures,  being  the  most  notable. 
78 


TEE  KNOW-NOTHING  PARTY. 

It  is  to  the  credit  of  our  courts  that 
the  narrow-minded  position  of  the  \ 
Maine  Supreme  bench  in  this  case  did 
not  receive  the  approval,  subsequently, 
of  any  court  of  final  resort.  Later  in 
the  fifties,  a  hundred  Catholic  children 
of  the  Elliot  school  in  Boston  were  ex- 
pelled because  they  refused  in  a  body 
to  participate  in  Protestant  prayers 
and  Bible  reading.  In  1859,  Principal 
Cooke  of  one  of  the  Boston  school?, 
severely  punished  Thomas  J.  Whall,  a 
Catholic  pupil,  who  had  declined  to  re- 
cite the  Ten  Commandments  according 
to  the  King  James  version.  The  case 
went  into  one  of  the  local  courts,  but 
without  redress  to  the  plaintiff. 

In  1853  and  1854  the  Know-Nothings 
used  secret  machinery  to  interfere  with 
and  disturb  the  political  meetings  of 
their  opponents  of  other  parties. 
George  W.  Julian  tells  us :  "If  a  meet- 
ing was  called  to  oppose  and  denounce 
its  schemes,  it  was  drowned  in  the 
Know-Nothing  flood  which,  at  the  ap- 
pointed time,  completely  overwhelmed 
the  helpless  minority.  This  happened 
in  my  own  county  and  town,  where 
thousands  of  men,  including  many  of 
my  own  Free  Soil  brethren,  assembled 
79 


THE  KN OAT-NOTHING  PARTY. 

as  an  organized  mob  to  suppress  the 
freedom  of  speech,  and  succeeded  by 
brute  force  in  taking  possession  of 
every  building  in  which  their  oppo- 
nents could  meet,  and  silencing  them 
by  savage  yells."  (Jvdian's  "Political 
Eecollections,"  142.) 

Charles  Eeemlin,  a  prominent  for- 
eign-born Republican  of  Ohio,  in  his 
"Eeview  of  American  Politics"  (page 
214),  says  that  "in  Know-Nothing 
times  there  was  a  tacit  exception  from 
anti-foreign  objuration  in  favor  of 
Scotch  and  English  Protestants.*  * 
The  foreign-bom  Presbyterians  were  in 
fact,  a  sort  of  back-stair  members  of 
Ejiow-Nothing  lodges." 

After  1848,  there  came  to  the  United 
States  among  the  increasing  German 
immigration,  a  large  number  of  men 
imbued  with  the  revolutionary  spirit  of 
the  time.  This  German  element  was 
bitterly  hostile  to  church  influence ;  and 
also  inclined  to  believe  that  the  Amer- 
ican system  of  government  could  be 
reformed.  The  German  Social  Demo- 
cratic association  of  Richmond  out- 
lined a  program  of  reforms,  and  the 
Free  Germans  of  Louisville  adopted  a 
similar  platform  calling  for  the  aboli- 
80 


TRE  KNOW-yOTHIXG  PARTY. 

tion  of  the  presidency  and  the  Senate, 
the  abrogation  of  Sunday  laws,  of 
oaths  taken  upon  the  Bible,  etc.  In 
Maryland,  Kentucky  and  Tennessee 
these  German  programs  were  widely 
used  to  excite  Know-Nothing  hostility 
to  inrmigration.  The  German  element 
also  v.-as  more  adverse  to  the  institu- 
tion of  slavery  than  were  the  other 
foreign  elements.  Most  o-  the  Ger- 
man papers  of  the  country  sLowed  a 
tendency  to  support  the  new  Eepubli- 
can  party.  The  keen  politicians  of  the 
south  perceived  this.  "While  in  the 
north  the  crusade  was  carried  on  main- 
ly against  the  Irish,"  says  Von  Hoist 
(VI.  188),  "the  south  was  chiefly  con- 
cerned in  insuring  the  harmlessness  of 
the  wicked  Germans."  Mobbing  of 
German  newspapers  and  Turner  halls 
in  some  of  the  cities  in  the  border 
states  were  incidents  noted  in  the  news- 
papers towards  the  eve  of  the  civil  war. 


81 


IV. 

DEMOCEATIC  AND  REPUB- 
LICAN ATTITUDES. 

■jV/rANY  anti-Nebraska  Democrats 
i.VX  went  into  Know-Nothing  lodges 
m  1854.  The  secret  movement  un- 
doubtedly promised  to  shape  Demo- 
cratic nominations  as  well  as  Whig  and 
Republican  li^minations  in  that  year. 
Congressman  Carruthers  (Dem.)  of 
Missouri,  admitted  (Feb.  28,  1856),  in 
a  letter  to  his  constituents  that  he  had 
joined  the  order: 

"I  went  twice  (and  but  twice),  into 
their  [the  Know  Nothing]  councils.  I 
'saw  Sam.'  It  took  two  visits  to  see 
him  all  over.  I  made  them.  I  saw  enough 
and  determined  never  to  look  on  his 
face  again." 

N.   P.     Banks  stated  in   the  House 
that  he   secured  his  first   election    (in 
82 


THE  KNOW-NOTHING  PARTY. 

1852)  to  Congress  through  a  combina- 
tion of  Democrats  and  Know-Nothings. 

Cutts  says  that  Douglas  told  him: 
"The  [Know  Xothing] party  struck  ter- 
ror everywhere  among  the  Democrats, 
and  threatened  to  gain  absolute  pos- 
ession  of  the  government.  I  tried  to 
get  the  Democrats  in  caucus  to  de- 
nounce it,  biit  they  refused,  and  were 
afraid.  General  Cass  said  to  me  that 
I  had  enough  to  contend  with,  and 
could  not  carry  on  my  shoulders  this 
new  element.  I  was  the  first  Democrat 
to  make  a  speech  against  it.  I  did  so  at 
Independence  hall,  Philadelphia," 
[July  4,  1854].  (A  Brief  Treatise  up- 
.on  Constitutional  and  Party  Questions 
.  . "  *  *  as  I  received  it  orally  from 
*     "     *     St.  A.  Douglas  p.  121.) 

Douglas  and  Wise  leading  the  way, 
other  Democratic  politicians  joined  in 
the  denunciation  of  Know  Nothingism, 
and  purged  the  party  of  the  taint.  In 
April,  1855,  at  Murpheesboro,  Tenn., 
Gov.  Andrew  Johnson,  (Dem).,  deliver- 
ed a  strong  speech  against  it,  and  in 
May,  1855,  Alexander  Stephens  of 
Georgia  published  a  letter  denouncing 
it. 

The  Democratic  members  of  Con- 
83 


THE  EXOW-XOTHING  PARTY. 

gress,  v.-liich  convened  December,  1855, 
unlike  their  predecessors  in  the  pre- 
vious Congress,  loiew  where  they  ought 
to  stand  on  the  Know-Nothing  issue. 
Fresh  from  the  mandate  of  the  people, 
they  took  occasion,  in  their  first  party 
caucus,  to  declare  themselves  against 
Know-Xothingism. 

The  Democratic  platform  upon 
which  Buchanan  was  elected  Presi- 
dent in  1858,  v>'as  unequivocal  in  this 
matter.     It  recited: 

"That  the  liberal  principles  sanction- 
ed in  the  Constitution  which  makes 
ours  the  land  of  liberty  and  the  asylum 
of  the  oppressed  of  every  nation  have 
been  cardinal  principles  of  the  Demo- 
cratic faith;  and  every  attempt  to 
abridge  the  privilege  of  becoming  citi- 
zens and  owning  soil  among  us  ought 
to  be  resented."    And : 

"Hence  a  political  crusade  in  the 
nineteenth  century  and  in  the  United 
States  of  America  against  Catholics 
and  foi-eign  born,  is  neither  justified 
by  the  past  history  nor  future  prospects 
of  the  country,  nor  in  unison  with  thy 
spirit  of  toleration  and  enlightened 
freedom  which  peculiarly  distinguishes 
the  American  system  of  popular  gov- 
84 


TEE  KNOW-NOTHING  PARTY. 

eriiment." 

The  formation  of  the  "Repviblican" 
party  was  first  suggested  at  a  meeting 
of  anti-slavery  men  convened  March, 
1854,  at  Ripon,  Wisconsin,  and  this 
was  followed  in  July,  1854,  by  Republi- 
can movements  in  Michigan  and  Ver- 
mont. But  the  Republican  movement 
did  not  at  once  take  hold  throughout 
the  country.  The  old  Whig  party  re- 
fused to  disband  in  New  York  and 
Massachusetts,  and  the  Know  Nothings 
placed  all  obstacles  possible  in  the  way 
of  the  new  party.  The  demand  of  the 
northern  anti-slavery  sentiment  for  a 
political  organization  gradually  found 
expression,  however,  after  the  middle  of 
1854, — in  some  states,  as  in  Indiana 
where  it  chose  the  title  "People's  par- 
ty"^ — imder  differing  names  and  aus- 
pices, but  with  a  general  similarity  of 
aims  and  purposes  everywhere. 

The  earnest  anti-slavery  men  who 
founded  the  Republican  party  were 
generally  outspoken  antagonists  of 
Know  Nothingism;  not  entirely,  of 
course,  because  they  disliked  its  intol- 
erance, but  because  they  revolted  at  its 
truce  with  the  slavocracy.  Wade, 
Giddings  and  Julian  were  among  those 
85 


THE  KNOW-NOTHING  PARTY. 

vrho  early  denounced  the  Know  Noth- 
ings. In  a  speech  in  the  Senate  on 
the  Homestead  bill,  William  H.  Sew- 
ard took  occasion  (February,  1855)  to 
remark : 

"It  is  sufficient  for  me  to  say  that,  in 
my  judgment,  everything  is  un- 
American  which  makes  a  distinction, 
of  whatever  kind,  in  this  country,  be- 
t'n'een  the  native  born  Araerican  and 
him  whose  lot  is  directed  to  be  cast 
here  by  an  overruling  Providence,  and 
who  renounces  his  allegiance  to  a  for- 
eign land  and  swears  fealty  to  the  coun- 
try which  adopts  him." 

And  Henry  Ward  Beecher  wrote 
in  The  Independent  (January,  18, 
1855:  "By  yearo  of  persistent  la- 
bor, the  conscience  and  honor  of  multi- 
tudes of  the  north  had  been  aroused. 
They  began  to  see  and  value  the  real 
principles  fundamental  to  American  in- 
stitutions. Under  the  shallow  pretense 
that  Know  Nothing  lodges  would,  by 
and  by,  become  the  champions  of  liber- 
ty, as  now  they  are  of  the  Protestant 
faith,  thousands  have  been  inveigled  in- 
to these  catacorabs  of  freedom.  One 
might  as  well  study  optics  in  the 
pyramids  of  Egypt,  or  the  subterranean 
86 


THE  KNOW-NOTHING  PARTY. 

tombs  of  Rome,  as  liberty  in  secret  con- 
claves controlled  by  hoary  knaves 
versed  in  political  intrigue,  who  can 
hardly  enough  express  their  surprise 
and  delight  to  see  honest  men  going 
into  a  wide-spread  system  of  secret 
caucuses.  Honest  men  in  such  places 
have  the  peculiar  advantage  that  flies 
have  in  a  spider's  web — the  privilege 
of  losing  their  legs,  of  buzzing  without 
flying,  and  being  eaten  up  at  leisure  by 
big-bellied   spiders." 

Greeley  in  The  New  York  Tribune, 
and  Dr.  Bailey  in  The  National  Era, 
were  strongly  anti-Know-Nothing.  All 
the  extreme  atjol'itionists  and  their 
organ.  The  Liberator,  were  adverse  on 
principle  to  the  proscriptive  movement. 

The  first  state  convention  of  the  Re- 
publican party  in  Illinois,  (Blooming- 
ton,  March,  1856),  inserted  in  its  plat- 
form a  resolution  denouncing  the  Know 
Nothings.  Abraham  Lincoln  was  pres- 
ent as  a  delegate.  When  the  anti-slav- 
ery men  of  Nev/  York  (in  the  latter 
part  of  1855),  finally  came  together  to 
laimch  the  Republican  party,  the  plat- 
form reported  by  Horace  Greeley  and 
adopted  by  the  convention,  strongly 
condemned  the  methods  and  the  doc- 
87 


/ 


THE  KNOW-NOTHING  PARTY. 

trines  of  the  Know  Nothings. 

February  22,  1856,  a  national  conven- 
tion of  the  Republicans  met  at  Pitts- 
burg, and  when  Charles  Reemlin  and 
other  speakers  vigorously  denounced 
Know  Nothingism  as  a  mischievous 
side  issue,  they  were  loudly  applaiided. 
At  the  subsequent  national  convention 
of  the  Republican  party  in  June  at 
Philadelphia,  the  platform  upon  which 
Fremont  was  nominated  declared  *  * 
"believing  that  the  spirit  of  our  insti- 
tions  as  well  as  the  institutions  of  our 
country  guarantees  liberty  of  consci- 
ence and  equality  of  rights  among  citi- 
zens we  oppose  all  prescriptive  legisla- 
tion affecting  their  security." 

This  view  was  substantially  reiter- 
ated in  the  platform  of  the  Chicago  na- 
tional convention  of  the  Republican 
party  in  1860,  section  14,  reciting  that 
"the  Republican  party  is  opposed  to 
any  changes  in  our  naturalization 
laws"  and  favors  "protection  to  the 
rights  of  all  classes  of  citizens,  whether 
native  or  naturalized." 

Former  Know  Nothings  sat  in  these 

conventions   and   heard  the  principles 

of    their    recent    affiliation  denounced, 

but  they   made   no   objection.      Either 

88 


THE  KNOW-NOTHING  PARTY. 

their  eyes  had  been  opened,  or  the  evil 
training  of  surreptitious  politics  de- 
prived them  of  the  courage  of  their 
convictions. 

The  Republican  party  absorbed 
thousands  of  those  who  left  the 
Know  Nothing  lodges  and  its  politi- 
cians tempered  their  methods  in  the 
years  1857-9,  in  such  wise  as  to  catch 
the  fragments  of  the  disrupting  Ameri- 
can party. 

Chas.  A.  Dana,  for  instance,  wrote 
Sept.  1,  1859: 

"The  Americans  hold  the  balance 
of  power  in  both  [N.  J.  and  N.  Y.] 
Their  party  is  in  the  act  of  final  dis- 
solution. Shall  we  let  the  fragments 
fall  into  with  the  arms  of  the  Loco- 
focos."     (Pike  p.  444). 

There  was  an  effective  warning,  how- 
ever, against  truckling  in  this  process 
to  any  Know-Nothing  policy.  Thus 
Lincoln,  in  1859,  wrote  a  public  letter 
against  "the  waning  fallacy  of  Know- 
Nothingism,"  (see  Nicholay  and  Hay's 
Biographj^  II.,  181),  with  special  ref- 
erence to  the  Know-Nothing  naturali- 
zation idea. 

Horace  Greeley  ("Recollections"  p. 
290),  expresses  this  opinion,  which  as 
89 


THE  KNOW-NOTHING  PARTY. 

a  forecast,  undoubtedly  governed  the 
mauagevs  of  the  Republican  party  aft- 
er 1856: 

"The  fact  that  almost  every  Know 
jSTothing  was  at  heart  a  Whig  or  a 
Democrat,  a  champion  or  an  opponent 
of  slavery  and  felt  a  stronger,  deeper 
interest  in  other  issues  than  in  those 
which  affiliated  him  with  the  'Order', 
rendered  its  disruption  and  abandon- 
ment not  a  question  of  years,  but  of 
months." 

It  is  not  the  less  true  or  creditable, 
however,  that  the  initial  expressions  of 
the  Republican  party  and  of  its  lead- 
ers were  unequivocally  against  the 
Know-Nothing  movement. 


90 


V. 

KNOW-NOTHINGISM  AND  ITS 

ISSUES. 

THE  national  convention  of  the 
American  party  at  Philadelphia,  in 
June,  1855,  made  the  following  state- 
ment of  the  distinctive  principles  of 
Know-Nothingism : 

"A  radical  revision  and  modification 
of  the  laws  regulating  immigration, 
and  tlie  settlement  of  immigrants,  of- 
fering the  honest  immigrant,  who  from 
love  of  liberty  or  hatred  of  oppression, 
seeks  an  asylum  in  the  United  States, 
a  friendly  reception  and  protection, 
but  unqualifiedly  condemning  the 
transmission  to  our  shores  or  felons  and 
paupers. 

"The  essential  modfication  of  the 
naturalization  laws.  The  repeal  by  the 
legislatures  of  the  respective  states  of 
91 


y 


THE  KNOW-NOTHING  PARTY. 

all  state  laws  allowing  foreigners  not 
naturalized,  to  vote.  The  repeal,  with- 
out retrospective  operation,  of  all  acts 
of  Congress  making  grants  of  land  to 
unnaturalized  foreigners,  and  allowing 
them  to  vote  in  the  territories. 

"Eesistance  to  the  aggressive  policy 
and  corrupting  tendencies  of  the  Ro- 
man Catholic  Church  in  our  country; 
by  the  advancement  to  all  political 
stations,  executive,  legislative,  judicial 
or  diplomatic — of  those  only  who  do 
not  hold  civil  allegiance,  directly  or  in- 
directly, to  any  foreign  power,  whether 
civil  or  ecclesiastical,  and  who  are 
Americans  by  birth,  education  and 
training,  thus  fulfilling  the  maxim, 
'Americans  only  shall  govern  America.' 

"And  inasmuch  as  Christianity,  by 
the  constitutions  of  nearly  all  the 
states;  by  the  decisions  of  most  emi- 
nent judicial  authorities,  and  by  the 
consent  of  the  people  of  America,  is 
considered  an  element  of  our  political 
system,  and  the  Holy  Bible  is  at  once 
the  sovirce  of  Christianity  and  the  de- 
pository and  fountain  of  all  civil  and 
religious  freedom,  we  oppose  every  at- 
tempt to  exclude  it  from  the  schools 
thus  established  in  the  states." 
92 


THE  KNOW-NOTHING  PARTY. 

The  platform  of  the  American  par- 
ty in  1856,  upon  which  Fillmore  was 
nominated,  covered  the  ground  of  the 
preceding  platform  as  follows : 

"Americans  must  rule  America,  and 
to  this  end  native-born  citizens  should 
be  selected  for  all  state  and  municipal 
offices,  or  government  employment,  in 
preference  to  all  others. 

"No  person  should  be  selected  for 
political  station  (whether  of  native  or 
foreign  birth),  who  recognizes  any  al- 
legiance or  obligation  of  any  descrip- 
tion to  any  foreign  prince,  potentate  or 
power,  or  who  refuses  to  recognize  the 
federal  and  state  constitutions  (each 
within  its  sphere),  as  paramount  to  all 
other  laAVS  as  issues  of  political  ac- 
tion. 

"A  change  in  the  laws  of  naturaliza- 
tion, making  a  continued  residence  of 
twenty-one  years,  of  all  not  hereinbe- 
fore provided  for,  an  indispensable  re- 
quisite for  citizenship  hereafter,  and 
excluding  all  paupers  and  persons  con- 
victed of  crime,  from  landing  upon  our 
shores,  but  no  interference  with  the 
vested  rights  of  foreigners." 

On  the  slavery  issue,  the  sincere  men 
in  the  '50's — the  men  who  knew  what 
93 


THE  KNOW-NOTHING  PABTY. 

they  wanted  and  who  were  earnest 
about  it — were  the  Republicans  of  the 
north,  who  opposed  the  further  exten- 
sion of  slavery,  no  matter  what  the 
consequences;  and  on  the  other  side, 
the  Democrats  of  the  south,  who  wanted 
the  sectional  equilibrium  maintained, 
slavery  extended  equally  with  the 
spread  of  freedom,  a  new  slave  state 
for  every  new  free  state,  and  if  this 
could  not  be,  the  south  would  secede. 

Between  these  parties  stood  many 
who  temporized,  or  compromised,  or 
trinnned ;  and  the  EJnow-Nothings  were 
conspicuously  of  this  class.  They  took 
the  position  that  their  issues, — natural- 
ization, immigration  and  papal  aggres- 
sion were  the  important  and  vital  is- 
sues,— and  that  the  slavery  issue  must, 
for  the  sake  of  the  union  and  section- 
al harmony,  be  left  where  legislation 
up  to  the  year  1855  found  it. 

But  as  northern  opinion  continued 
to  turn  against  the  political  dominance 
of  the  south,  provoked  by  the  demands 
which  the  slavocray  made,  and  exacted 
from  the  Democratic  party  (embodied 
in  such  events  as  the  Kansas-Xebraska 
bill,  the  Fugitive  Slave  law  and  the 
Dred  Scott  decision),  a  large  element 
94 


THE  KXOW-XOTHIXG  PARTY. 

of  the  northern  I\jiov7-Nothings,  wheth- 
er from  policy  or  conviction,  found 
that  they  could  no  longer  straddle  the 
slavery  issue.  Numbers  of  these  went 
into  the  Eepublican  party ;  numbers  of 
them  adhered  to  the  American  party 
under  protest  as  to  its  position  on  the 
slavery  issue. 

At  the  national  convention  of  the 
Kjiow-Nothing  order  at  Philadel- 
phia in  June,  1855,  there  were  two  re- 
ports on  the  slavery  question  from  the 
committee  on  resolutions.  The  major- 
ity.consistingof  fourteen  members  from 
the  southern  states  and  the  representa- 
tives from  New  York  and  Minnesota, 
declared  that  Congress  ought  not  to 
prohibit  slaveiy  in  the  District  of  Co- 
lumbia or  in  any  territory,  that  it  had 
no  power  to  exclude  any  state  from  ad- 
mission to  the  union  because  that 
state,  by  its  constitution,  allowed  sla- 
very. The  minority,  consisting  of  th? 
representatives  from  thirteen  free 
states,  proposed  that  the  Missouri  com- 
promise should  be  re-enacted,  and  that 
no  part  of  the  Kansas-Nebraska  terri- 
tory should  come  into  the  union  as  a 
slave  state.  After  a  protracted  debate, 
the  majority  report,  as  has  been  noted, 
95 


THE  KNOW-NOTHING  PARTY. 

v\'as  adopted  (80  to  59).  The  minority 
protested,  but  the  northern  wing  of  the 
party  nevertheless,  continvied  to  act 
with  the  southern  wing.  Their  anti- 
slavery  sentiment  was  a  matter  of  pol- 
icy rather  than  of  conviction.  This 
was  illustrated  at  the  subsequent  na- 
tional gathering  of  the  party  at  Phil- 
adelphia in  February,  1856,  v.hen 
the  platform  being  under  consid- 
eration, Mr.  Sheets  of  Indiana, 
pleaded  for  a  more  ambiguovis 
statement  on  the  slavery  issue  for  the 
sake  of  the  northern  Know-Nothings ; 
"he  was  willing  to  accept  the  Washing- 
ton platform ;  for  if  there  was  anything 
in  it,  it  was  so  covered  up  Avith  verbiage 
that  a  president  would  be  elected  before 
the  people  found  out  what  it  was  all 
about    (tumultuous   laughter)."* 

Southern  opinion,  both  Democratic 
and  Whig,  in  so  far  as  it  was  concerned 
about  the  slavery  question,  regarded  the 
Know-Nothing  movement  complacent- 
ly, as  a  diversion  in  political  tactics, 
and  as  such  calculated  to  impede    the 

*In  the  course  oi  debate.  Parson  Brown- 
low  of  Tennessee,  declared  he  could  "take 
five  men  of  his  delegation  and  lick  the  Ohio 
delegation  out  of  the  hall." 

96 


TEE  KNOW-NOTHING  PARTY. 

growth  of  the  anti-slavery  sentiment  in 
the  north.  Julian's  view  on  the  mat- 
ter is,  of  course,  far-fetched,  but  it  in- 
dicates correctly  the  practical  advan- 
tage the  southerner  might  look  for: 

"Its  [the  American  party's]  birth, 
simultaneously  with  the  repeal  of  the 
Missouri  compromise,  was  not  an  ac- 
cident, as  any  one  could  see  who  had 
studied  the  tactics  of  the  slave-holders. 
It  was  a  well-timed  scheme  to  divide 
the  people  of  the  free  states  upon  trifles 
and  side  issues,  while  the  south  re- 
mained a  unit  in  defense  of  its  great 
interest.  It  was  the  cunning  attempt 
to  balk  and  divert  the  indignation 
aroused  by  the  repeal  of  the  Missouri 
restriction,  which  else  would  spend  its 
force  upon  the  aggression  of  slavery; 
for  by  thus  kindling  the  Protestant 
jealousy  of  our  people  against  the  Pope, 
and  enlisting  them  in  a  crusade 
against  the  foreigner,  the  south 
could  all  the  more  successfully  push 
forward  its  schemes."  (Political  Recol- 
lections. 1840  to  1872,  p.  141.) 

Southern  opinion  rather  welcomed  a 
northern  movement  to  shvit  out  Euro- 
pean inunigration.  Immigration  had 
largely  increased  the  preponderance  of 
97 


THE  KNOW-NOTHING  PARTY. 

the  north  in  the  popular  branch  of 
Congress,  and  given  that  section  its 
y  army  of  western  settlers  now  peopling 
the  territories  for  freedom.  Governor 
Smith  of  Virginia  said  in  a  speech, 
reported  in  The  New  York  Tribune, 
March  14,  1855:  "The  origin  of  the 
Know-Nothings^  is  a  struggle  for  bread 
— a  frightful  and  angry  question  at 
the  north.  At  the  south  it  is  a  politi- 
cal question  of  high  importance.  The 
north  has  fifty-five  more  representatives 
than  the  south  already.  The  natural 
increase  of  the  south  is  one-third  great- 
er than  that  of  the  north,  because  there 
are  greater  checks  on  population  there ; 
but  the  artificial  element  of  foreignism 
brings  500,000  who  settle  annually  in 
^/^  the  free  states,  with  instincts  against 
slavery,  making  fifty  representatives  in 
ten  years  to  swell  the  opposition  to 
the  south.  To  stop  this  enormous  dis- 
proportion, what  is  our  i)olicy?  What 
is  the  frightful  prospect  before  us'i 
The  effect  of  Know-Nothingism  is  to 
turn  back  the  tide  of  immigration,  and 
our  highest  duty  to  the  south  is  to  dis- 
y/  courage  immigration.  I  deprecate  it 
as  a  great  calamity." 

A  slaveholder  of  the  period  put  the 
98 


THE  KNOW-NOTHING  PARTY. 

matter  in  this  way :  "The  mistake  with 
us  has  been  that  it  was  not  made  fel- 
ony to  bring  in  an  Irishman  when  it 
was  made  piracy  to  bring  in  an  Afri- 
can." (Draper's  American  Conflict,  I,, 
446.) 


99 


ff 


VI. 

SOLVENT  INFLUENCES  AND 
DISCUSSION. 

AFTER  1854  the  Know-Nothing 
■^^-  movement  was  subjected  to  the  sol- 
vent influences  of  public  opinion.  The 
press  of  the  country  sought  to  drag  it 
into  the  open.  Its  extension  in- 
to the  south  was  accompanied  by 
a  loss  of  secrecy.  The  American  party 
there  adopted  the  open  methods  of  the 
Whig  party  which  it  absorbed.  "It  does 
the  south  no  small  honor,"  says 
Von  Hoist,  (V.  p.  191),  "that  there 
the  party  had  to  agree  to  give  up 
its  secrecy  and  its  oaths  as  it  had  al- 
ready been  forced  there  to  make  conces- 
sions in  regard  to  the  Catholics." 

Col  J.  W.  Forney,  in  an  address  on 
"Eeligious    Intolerance     and    Political 
Proscription"    delivered    at    Lancaster, 
100 


TEE  KNO}Y-XOTHIXG  PARTY. 

Pa.,  24tli  Sept.  1855,  p.  22,  tells  us : 

"To  such  extent  has  public  indigna- 
tion been  excited  against  the  profane 
and  familiar  resort  to  extra  judicial 
oaths,  and  the  invariable  appeal  to 
force  and  fraud  at  the  ballot-boxes, 
that  in  portions  of  the  Union  it  [the 
American  party]  has  deliberately  dis- 
carded alike  its  secrecy  and  its  obliga- 
tions. This  has  been  the  case  in  Ala- 
bama, Georgia,  Louisiana  and  South 
Carolina." 

The  secrecy  of  the  order  was  practi- 
cally done  for  throughout  the  whole 
country  after  the  American  party 
launched  itself  in  national  politics. 
When  in  June,  1855,  the  Know-Noth- 
ing national  convention  assembled  at 
Philadelphia,  its  sessions  were  fully  re- 
ported in  the  New  York  papers  whose 
representatives  were  present  at  the 
gathering.  State  councils  of  the  Know- 
Nothing  order  there  were  empowered  to 
dispense  with  the  secret  character  of  the 
m.ovement.     The  platform  declared: 

'•'That  each  state  council  shall  have 
authority  to  amend  their  several  con- 
stitutions so  as  to  abolish  the  several 
degrees,  and  institute  a  pledge  of  hon- 
or instead  of  other  obligations  for  fel- 
101 


THE  KNOW-NOTHING  PARTY. 

lowship  and  admission  into  the  party. 
A  free  and  open  discussion  of  all  the 
political  principles  embraced  in  our 
platform." 

This  option  was  speedily  availed  of. 
The  Massachusetts  Know-Nothings,  for 
instance,  on  August  7,  1855,  abolished 
secrecy,  including  the  oatlis.  (Life  of 
Bowles,  140). 

One  consequence  of  the  loss  of  secre- 
cy and  the  turning  on  of  the  light  of 
piiblic  discussion  was  the  attempted 
disavowal  and  abatement  of  the  intoler- 
ant program  of  the  order  and  the  des- 
uetude of  its  obligations  against  the 
Catholics  and  foreigners.  This  happen- 
ed quite  generally  in  the  south  and 
more  particularly  in  the  states  of  Lou- 
isiana and  Missouri;  but  also  in  Cali- 
fornia. 

L.  M.  Kennett  of  Missouri,  himself  a 
Know-Nothing  congressman  said  of  the 
party  in  his  state :  "All  secrecy  is  there 
discarded  and  religious  tests  ignored." 
(Cluskey,  The  Political  Test  book  p, 
299).  Congressman  Barry  of  Missis- 
sippi, speaking  December,  1854,  in  the 
House  of  Representatives  said:  "In 
Louisiana  Catholics  are  allowed  to  join 
the  order  because  that  denomination  is 

102 


THE  KNOW-NOTHING  PARTY. 

too  numerous  there  to  be  assailed  open- 
ly." Congressman  Eustis  of  Louisiana, 
elected  as  a  Know-Nothing,  delivered  a 
speech  Jan.  6,  1856,  in  the  House  of 
Representatives  in  which  he  entirely 
repudiated  the  anti-Catholic  policy  of 
his  party  and  passed  to  a  eulogy  of 
Catholic  citizenship.* 

In  Illinois  the  Know-jSTothing  order 
split  into  two  factions,  "the  Sams"  in- 
sisting upon  an  anti-Catholic  program 
and  "the  Jonathans"  proposing  not  to 
antagonize  Catholics  who  owed  no  civil 
allegiance  as  distinguished  from  spirit- 
ual allegiance  to  the  Pope.  The 
Jonathans   triumphed. 

But  even  in  the  south,  in  the  course 
of  political  discussion,  when  the  Ameri- 
can party  was  forced  to  defend  its  in- 
tolerant program,  its  advocates  borrow- 
ed the  narrow  and  inflaraatory  argu- 
ments of  their  northern  brethren; 
though  they  preferred  to  avoid  this  line 
of  discussion  and  many  of  them  suc- 
ceeded in  doing  so. 

*Two  sets  of  delegates  appeared  from 
Louisiana  at  the  Philadelphia  Know-Noth- 
ing  convention  in  1856.  And  among  the 
members  of  one  it  was  ascertained  that 
there  were   Catholics. 

103 


THE  KNO  W-NOTHING  PARTY. 

There  were,  too,  numerous  splits  in 
the  order,  growing  out  of  personal  jeal- 
ousies and  contests  for  power. 

When  the  Grand  Council  of  New 
York,  in  October  1854,  put  up  a  candi- 
date for  governor  it  was  claimed  that 
this  was  done  without  consulting  the 
subordinate  councils.  The  Grand  Coun- 
cil then  complained  that  its  candidates 
v/ere  defeated  at  the  polls  because  a 
large  number  of  Kno-A'-Nothings  had 
not  voted  for  them.  An  attempt  was 
made  to  discipline  the  bolters  and  this 
widened  the  breach.  The  Brooklyn 
Council  objected  to  such  coercion  by 
resolutions  which  described  the  action 
of  the  Grand  Council  as  "equalled  only 
by  the  Holy  Inquisition  of  Spain," 

Allen,  the  father  of  the  order,  was 
impelled  to  organize  a  seceding  move- 
ment; and  the  "Know-Somethings,"  the 
"North  Americans,"  the  "Mountain 
Sweets"  and  other  designations,  which 
are  found  in  the  newspapers  after  1854, 
indicate  the  progress  of  such  disin- 
tegration. 

While  the  Nativist  and  anti-Catholic 

movement    was    inevitable    and    would 

have   occurred   even   if  the   Irish   and 

Catholic  element  had  been  on  their  best 

104 


TEE  KNOW-NOTHING  PARTY. 

behavior  and  had  given  no  provocation 
whatever,  it  is  interesting  to  note  is- 
how  far  the  Catholics  held  themselves 
blameable.  Dr.  Brownson,  the  emi- 
nent Catholic  publicist  of  that  day,  in 
his  Quarterly  Keview  (Works,  vol.  10, 
page  317),  said  of  the  Irish  element; 
"The  great  majority  of  them  are  quiet, 
modest  and  peaceful  and  loyal  citizens 
adorning  religion  by  their  faith  and 
piety  and  enriching  the  country  by 
their  successful  trade  or  their  produc- 
tive industry.  But  it  cannot  be  denied 
that  hanging  loosely  on  to  their  skirts 
is  a  miserable  rabble  unlike  anything 
which  the  country  has  ever  known  of 
native  growth — a  noisy,  drinking  and 
brawling  rabble,  who  have  after  all  a 
great  deal  of  influence  with  their  coun- 
trymen, who  are  usually  taken  to  rep- 
resent the  whole  Irish  Catholic  body, 
and  who  actually  do  compromise  it  to 
an  extent  much  greater  than  good  Cath- 
olics, attentive  to  their  own  business, 
conxmonly  suspect  or  can  easily  be 
made  to  believe." 

As  for  the  proper  policy  for  Catholics 

to  pursue  in  the  matter.  Dr.  Brownson 

wrote  as  follows.     (Quoted  in  the  Life 

of  O.  A.  Brownson,  Vol,  2,  Page  539)  : 

105 


THE  KNOW-XOTHIXG  PARTY. 

"We  Catholics  are  in  a  small  min- 
ority and  tlie  sentiment  of  the  country- 
is  strongly  anti-Catholic.  Every  meas- 
ure that  we  oppose  as  hostile  to  us,  the 
country  will  favor  and  adopt  and  every 
measure  we  support  as  favorable  to  our 
interests,  it  will  reject.  I  am  sorry 
that  it  is  so,  but  so  it  is;  and  I  think 
that  in  regard  to  matters  which  depend 
on  popular  votes,  and  in  which  we  are 
interested  as  Catholics,  the  more  quiet 
we  keep  the  better  it  will  be  for  us." 

This  advice  was  not  followed  by  Dr. 
Brownson's  co-religionists.  They  ev- 
eryAvhere  met  their  "dark  lantern"  an- 
tagonist openly  and  with  vigor.  They 
fought  it  through  their  press  and  they 
fought  it  through  the  political  party 
to  which  most  of  them  belonged;  for 
undoubtedly  it  was  due  to  the  large 
Catholic  and  Irish  element  in  the  Dem- 
ocratic party  that  Douglas  and  other 
Democratic  leaders  purged  their  party 
of  the  Know-Nothing  elem^ent  and 
made  it  not  neutral,  but  openly  hostile 
to  the  Know-^Nothing  policy. 

No  matter  how  good  the  behavior  of 
the  Catholic  and  Irish  element  might 
have  been,  the  old  charge  of  the  evan- 
gelical church  party  in  England  and 
106 


THE  KXOVf-XOTHIXG  PARTY. 

America  that  the  citizenship  of  the 
Catholic  is  a  uiatter  of  divided  allegi- 
ance would  have  formed  the  main 
charge  of  the  Know-Xothing  move- 
ment. The  Catholics  denied  the  charge. 
Brownson  wrote: 

"In  acknowledging  the  equal  rights 
of  all  religions  the  American  system 
acknowledges  that  the  state  has  no  au- 
thority in  spirituals  and  therefore  in 
religious  matters  has  no  claim  to  the 
obedience  or  allegiance  of  any  of  its 
subjects  or  citizens.  Hence  as  the  Pope 
has  only  authority  over  Catholics  in 
the  spiritual  order,  no  obedience  he 
can  exact  of  them,  or  which  they  owe 
him,  can  ever  conflict  with  any  obedi- 
ence which  the  state  with  us  even 
claims  as  its  due."  (Brownson's  Works 
Vol.  18.  page  345.) 

But  he  also  trenched  upon  what,  in 
this  country  at  least,  will  always  be  a 
purely  academic  issue:  whether  in  case 
of  conflict  between  the  temporal  and 
spiritual  order,  which  must  yields 
"The  temporal  of  course"  answered 
Brownson.  This  branch  of  the  discvis- 
sion  was  quite  a  needless  one  to  enter 
on,  especially  too  as  it  subjected  Dr. 
Brownson  and  his  co-religionists  to  a 

107 


THE  EXOW-XOTHIXG  PARTY. 

great  deal  of  misrepresentation  and 
Brownson  personally,  to  the  attack  of 
most  of  the  Catholic  and  Irish-Ameri- 
can papers  of  the  country,  which  re- 
garded him  as  an  extremist  in  his  view 
of  this  matter.  John  Mitchell,  then 
editing  the  Irish  Citizen  of  New  York, 
assailed  Brownson  as  follows: 

"This  I  say  has  been  your  work  Doc- 
tor Orestes;  hence  has  come  whatever 
of  bitterness  and  ferocity  that  is  to  be 
found  in  the  Native- American  party; 
this  outrageous  caricature  of  Catholici- 
ty, held  up  to  America  by  you  (after 
you  had  tired  of  all  the  other  religions) 
has  been  the  principal  spring,  and  is 
the  only  excuse  for  the  furious  anti- 
Irish  spirit  which  is  now  raging." 

Not  only  Brownson's  Quarterly  Re- 
view, but  other  Catholic  papers  were 
widely  misquoted  in  Know-Nothing 
publications;  and  in  this  discussion 
their  language  was  garbled  and  not  a 
few  sheer  fabrications  were  set  afloat. 
It  is  to  be  noted  that  so  respectable  a 
historian  as  Von  Hoist  in  the  fifth 
volume  of  his  Constitutional  History, 
taking  quotations  from  Brownson's 
Eeview,  second  hand  as  he  finds  them 
in  Know-Nothing  publications,  is  mis- 
108 


THE  KNOW-NOTHING  PARTY. 

led  as  to  the  Catholic  attitude  in  the 
discussions  referred  to.  An  alleged  quo- 
tation from  a  St.  Louis  publication 
called  The  Shepherd  of  the  Valley, 
which  has  done  service  in  anti-Catholic 
literature  for  nearly  half  a  century 
and  the  garbled  nature  of  which  has 
been  frequently  exposed,  is  accepted  by 
Yen  Hoist  in  his  array  of  evidence  as  to 
Catholic  opinion. 

But  these  misquotations  of  Catholic 
authorities  were  merely  incidents  in 
the  discussion.  They  were  not  neces- 
sary to  bolster  up  the  time  honored 
Anglo-Saxon  and  Evangelical  aspersion 
of  the  integrity  Catholic  citizenship, 
an  aspersion  as  old  as  the  age  of  Queen 
Elizabeth  and  responsible  for  the  perse- 
cuting statutes  of  her  time;  an  aspersion 
too,  which  though  diminishing  in  force 
from  generation  to  generation  is,  never- 
theless, liable  to  recur  in  years  to  come 
and  during-  future  flurries  of  intoler- 


109 


YII. 

THE  CAM-PAIGX  OF  1856. 

/"^jST  Washin^on's  birthday,  Feb.  22, 
^^  1856,  the  American  party  met 
at  Philadelphia  to  nominate  a  presi- 
dential ticket.  The  selection  of  a  can- 
didate for  president  was  easily  made. 
Fillmore  led  with  71  votes  on  the  first 
ballot,  a  scattering  opposition  giving 
George  Law  27  votes,  Garret  Davis  13, 
R.  F.  Stockton  8,  Judge  McLean  7, 
Sam  Houston  6,  John  Bell  5,  Kenneth 
Raynor  2,  Erastus  Brooks  2,  John  ^L 
Clayton  of  Delaware  1  and  L.  D. 
Campbell  of  Ohio  1.  A.  J.  Donnelson 
of  Tennessee  was  nominated  for  vice- 
president.  The  American  ticket  was 
endorsed-  a  few  months  later,  by  a  na- 
tional convention  of  the  old  line  Whigs 
at  Baltimore. 

The  Republican  party  assembled  in 
Philadelphia  in  June,   and  nominated 
110 


THE  EXOW-XOTHIXG  PARTY. 

John  C.  Fremont  for  president.  On 
the  informal  ballot,  359  votes  were  cast 
for  Fremont  and  196  for  McLean. 

Around  the  candidacy  of  McLean, 
then  a  judge  of  the  supreme  court  of 
the  United  States,  there  gathered  some- 
thing of  interest  in  the  history  of 
Know-Xothingism.  He  had  been  a 
cabinet  officer  under  Monroe  and  John 
Quincy  Adams,  and  he  was  appointed 
to  the  supreme  bench  by  Andrew  Jack- 
son. The  secession  of  a  number  of 
northern  delegates  from  the  American 
convention  atPhiladelphia  in  February, 
had  entered  into  the  calculation  of  the 
Republicans  who  sought  to  attach  those 
delegates  to  their  cause.  It  was  gen- 
erally understood  that  the  anti-slavery 
Americans  favored  McLean.  The  Ger- 
man element  of  the  country,  then  large- 
ly affiliating  with  the  Republican  party, 
took  alarm.  A  great  majority  of  their 
papers,  of  which  there  were  then  a  hun- 
dred in  the  country,  clamored  for  Fre- 
mont, probably  through  fear  of  Mc- 
Lean's supposed  nativist  tendencies. 
Delegates  from  the  doubtful  states,  and 
many  conservative  Republicans, 
were  inclined  to  favor  McLean  as  the 
more  available  candidate.  They  thought 
111 


THE  KNOW-NOTHING  PARTY. 

that  he  would  make  a  better  run 
against  Buchanan  in  Pennsylvania, 
which  was  then  a  pivotal  state.  On 
that  account  Stevens,  Lincoln,  Wash- 
burn and  many  others,  advised  his  nom- 
ination. Fremont's  nomination,  on 
the  formal  ballot  was,  however,  al- 
most unanimous. 

The  Know-Nothings,  who  seceded 
from  the  Philadelphia  American  con- 
vention, ultimately  endorsed  Fremont, 
though  they  first  nominated  Banks, 
who  declined.  Fremont's  nomination, 
hov>'ever,  was  not  acceptable  to  a  cer- 
tain other  element  of  the  "North  Amer- 
icans." They  further  seceded  and  nom- 
inated Stockton  of  New  Jersey  for 
president. 

In  the  ensuing  campaign  the  noise 
and  hurrah  throughout  the  north  were 
decidedly  with  the  Republicans.  They 
gave  the  country  a  livelier  season  of 
electioneering  than  any  it  had  seen 
since  1840 ;  indeed,  old  politicians  seem 
to  agree  that  '56  was  even  more  rous- 
ing than  the  Tippecanoe  and  Tyler  cam- 
paign. It  was  increasingly  apparent 
that  the  American  party  had  no  chance 
of  victory.  In  Pennsylvania,  which 
was  then  an  October  pivotal  state,  the 
112 


THE  KNOW-NOTHING  PARTY. 

Kepublican  and  Know-Nothing  mana- 
gers came  together  to  patch  up  a  plan 
to  wrest  that  state  from  Buchanan  by 
arranging  a  union  state  ticket.  The 
plan  failed.  Pennsylvania  was  carried 
in  October  by  the  Democrats  against 
the  combined  votes  of  the  other  parties ;. 
and  again  for  the  national  ticket  in 
November.  Bvichanan  received  174 
electoral  votes,  to  114  for  Fremont  and 
8  for  Fillmore.  This  campaign  ended 
the  American  party  as  a  national  or- 
ganization. 

The  distribution  of  the  popular  vote 
received  by  Fillmore,  the  candidate  of 
the  American  party,  was  as  follows: 

FREE  STATES,   i   SLAVE  STATES. 

Maine   3,335    Virginia 60.310 

New   Hampshire    .422    No.  Carolina.    ..36,886 

Vermont 545    So.  Carolina 

Massachusetts.    19,626    Georgia 42,228 

Connecticut   ..    ..1,675    Alabama 28,552 

Rhode  Island....  2,615    Florida 4.833 

Mississippi    24,195 

28,218  !  Louisiana 20,709 

Nev/  York  ..    ..124,604    Texas 15,639 

*New  Jersey...   24,115    Arkansas 10,787 

♦Pennsylvania.    82,175  ;  Missouri 48,524 

Tennessee 66,178 

230,894     Kentucky 67,416 

Ohio 28,126    Delaware 6,175 

Michigan 1,660    Maryland 47,460 

'Indiana 22,386  

♦Illinois 37,444  I      Total 479,882 

Wisconsin 579 

Iowa 9,180 

♦California 36,165 

135,540 
Total 394,652 

The  free  states   (5)   marked  with    a 
113 


THE  KNOW-NOTHING  PARTY. 

star,  and  all  the  slave  states  except 
Maryland,  were  carried  by  Buchanan, 
giving  him  174  electoral  votes.  Fre- 
mont carried  11  of  the  16  free  states, 
giving  him  114  electoral  votes,  and  Fill- 
more carried  Maryland  alone,  giving 
him  8  electoral  votes.  The  American 
party  cut  but  little  figure  in  this  elec- 
tion in  the  I\ew  England  states  and 
in  the  northwest.  In  Illinois  it  cast 
about  sixteen  per  cent,  of  the  total 
vote,  and  in  Ohio  and  Indiana  less  than 
eight  per  cent.  In  California  it  cast 
one-third  of  the  total  vote,  and  in  New 
York,  New  Jersey  and  Pennsylvania, 
less  than  one-fourth.  The  north  cast 
less  than  one-seventh  of  its  total  vote 
for  the  KxLow-Nothing  presidential 
ticket,  and  the  south  about  three-sev- 
enths of  its  total  vote :  the  north  some- 
thing less  than  fifteen  per  cent,  and  the 
south  something  over  forty  per  cent. 
More  than  haK,  or  480,000  of  the  874,- 
000  votes  given  Fillmore,  came  from 
that  portion  of  the  United  States  south 
of  Mason  and  Dixon's  line,  and  but 
394,652  from  the  free  states. 

The  popular  vote  of  the  free  states 
was  thus  divided  as  between  the  candi- 
dates:    Of  a  total  of  2,961,009  north- 
114 


THE  KNOW-NOTHING  PARTY. 

orn  voters,  1,340,070  voted  for  Fremont, 
the  Republican  candidate,  1,22(3,287 
voted  for  Buchanan,  the  Democratic 
candidate,  and  394,652  voted  for  Fill- 
more, the  American  candidate.  In  the 
total  southern  vote  of  1,092,995,  611,- 
879  voted  for  Buchanan,  479,882  for 
Fillmore  and  only  1,094  voted  for  Fre- 
mont. 

The  Know-Nothing  vote  in  the  south, 
however,  is  not  so  sigiiificant  as  bear- 
ing upon  the  question  of  religious  and 
nativist  intolerance  as  the  vote  in  the 
north.  It  did  not  signify  much  be- 
yond the  gathering  of  the  Whig  oppo- 
sition under  a  new  banner,  but  held  to- 
gether by  the  same  Whig  principles, 
associations  and  leaders.  In  the  north, 
however,  the  Know-Nothing  vote  of 
1856,  wherever  it  appeared,  usually  sig- 
nified a  much  larger  degree  of  existing 
religiovis  and  racial  prejudice. 

The  vote  of  New  England  showed 
that  this  state  of  feeling  had  been  swept 
away  almost  entirely  by  the  deeper  in- 
terest felt  in  the  slavery  issue,  but  the 
old  nativist  root  feeling  in  New  York, 
New  Jersey  and  Pennsylvania  still  per- 
sisted, and  possibly  held  a  fifth  of  the 
voters  of  those  states  in  willing  bond- 
115 


THE  KNOW-NOTHING  PARTY. 

age;  and  to  some  extent  the  same  intol- 
erant feeling  was  influential  in  Ohio, 
Indiana  and  Illinois,  where,  perhaps 
from  five  to  ten  per  cent  of  the  voters 
still  thought  the  Pope  a  more  vital  is- 
sue than  slavery. 

The  "VMiig  vote  of  the  south  in  1852 
had  been  367,000.  The  American  par- 
ty of  1856,  with  480,000  votes  in  the 
south,  virtually  absorbed  the  strength 
and  natural  increase  of  the  Whigs. 
It  came  closest  to  carrying  the  old-time 
Whig  states  of  Kentucky,  Tennessee 
and  Louisiana,  which,  since  1836,  had 
generally  gone  for  the  Whig  presiden- 
tial candidate.  Maryland,  which  Fill- 
more carried,  was  also  naturally  "a 
Whig  state.  It  had  given  its  electoral 
vote  to  the  Whig  candidate  for  presi- 
dent at  every  election  since  1836,  that 
of  1852  alone  excepted. 


116 


VIII. 

KIS^OW-XOTHINGISM     IX     COX- 
GKESS. 

A  LTHOFGH  the  thirty-third  con- 
-^~*-  gress,  elected  at  the  time  of 
the  presidential  election  in  1852, 
and  convening  for  its  first  ses- 
sion in  December,  1853,  and  for 
its  second  session  in  December,  1854, 
was  overwhelmingly  Democratic  (Dem- 
ocrats, 159;  Whigs,  71;  Free  Soilers, 
4),  there  was  not  wanting  a  suspicion 
that  a  number  of  its  members,  many 
of  them  Whigs,  but  some  Democrats, 
had  been  inducted  into  the  Know-Noth- 
ing  order,  or  were  under  obligations  to 
the  new  movement  for  support  at  the 
polls.  In  February,  1855,  Congress- 
man Witte  of  Pennsylvania,  introduced 
a  resolution  in  the  House  condemn- 
ing secret  political  societies  and  their 
117 


THE  KNOW-NOTHING  PARTY. 

prescript h-e  purposes;  and  he  moved  a 
suspension  of  the  rules  so  that  the  reso- 
lution could  be  discussed;  at  the  same 
time,  declaring  that  the  vote  on  the  sus- 
pension of  the  rules  would  be  regarded 
as  a  test  vote.  The  House  refused  to 
suspend  the  rules, — ayes  103,  noes  78 — 
the  necessary  two-thirds  vote  in  the  af- 
firmative not  being  obtained.  Had  all 
the  Dv  mocrats  voted  for  the  suspension 
of  the  rules,  that  motion  might  havti; 
easily  carried.  Those  Democrats  who 
voted  in  the  negative  explained  their 
course  by  stating  that  a  prolonged  dis- 
cussion upon  the  resolution  would  in- 
terfere with  the  transaction  of  a  mass 
of  business  which  had  been  accumulat- 
ing in  the  committeees  of  the  House. 

The  thirty- fourth  congress,  elected  at 
the  fall  elections  of  1854,  was  divided, 
in  so  far  as  a  classification  was  possi- 
ble, as  follows :  In  the  Senate,  42  Dem- 
ocrats, 15  Republicans  and  5  Know- 
Xothings.  In  the  House,  83  Demo- 
crats, 108  Republicans  (TO  of  whom 
were  members  of  Know-Nothing  coun- 
cils), and  43  out-and-out  Know-Noth- 
ings. The  Know-Nothings  held  the 
balance  of  power.  There  then  ensued 
a  prolonged  contest  for  the  speakership, 
118 


THE  KNOW-NOTHING  PARTY. 

one  of  the  most  remarkable  episodes  of 
the  kind  in  our  congressional  annals. 
Both  Democrats  and  Republicans  seem 
to  have  bid  for  the  American  vote. 
Men  of  Know-Nothing  affiliation  were 
prominent  among  the  candidates.  On 
the  first  ballot  Humphrey  Marshall  of 
Louisville,  Ky.,  one  of  the  Know-Xoth- 
ing  leaders  of  the  border  states,  received 
30  out  of  the  225  votes  cast.  N.  P. 
Banks  of  Massachusetts,  first  a  Dem- 
ocrat, then  a  Know-Xothing,  but  now  a 
Eepublican,  received  21  votes.  H.  M. 
Fuller,  leader  of  the  conservative 
Know-Nothings,  received  IT  votes.  L. 
D.  Campbell  of  Ohio,  anti-slavery 
Know-Nothing,  53  votes.  After  two 
months  of  continuous  balloting,  N.  P. 
Banks,  the  Republican  candidate,  was 
finally  elected  speaker  by  a  plurality 
vote. 

At  the  presidential  election  of  1856, 
the  Know-iSTothings  met  with  reverses. 
Tlie  thirty-fifth  congress,  which  wa.= 
then  elected,  began  its  session  in  Dec- 
ember, 1857,  and  was  constituted  as 
follows:  In  the  Senate  39  Democrats, 
20  Republicans  and  5  Know-Nothings; 
in  the  house  131  Democrats,  92  Repub- 
licans and  14  Ivnow-Nothings.  Oit 
119 


THE  KNOW-NOTHING  PARTY. 

(Dem.)  was  elected  speaker.  He  was 
unequivocably  against  the  Know-Noth- 
ings. 

The  thirty-sixth  congress,  elected 
in  the  fall  of  1858,  met  for  its 
first  session  in  December,  1859, 
and  was  constituted  as  fol- 
lows :  In  the  Senate,  38  Democrats, 
26  Republicans  and  2  Know-Nothings ; 
in  the  House,  101  Democrats,  113  Ee- 
publicans  (four  of  whom  were  Know- 
Nothings),  and  23  Know-Nothings 
(openly  classed  as  such).  By  this 
time  the  Know-Nothing  party,  especial- 
ly so  far  as  it  appeared  in  Congress, 
was  a  border-state  party.  Its  two  sen- 
ators were  from  the  states  of  Kentucky 
and  Maryland.  Of  its  twenty-three 
congressmen,  five  came  from  Kentucky, 
seven  from  Tennessee,  three  from  Ma- 
ryland, four  from  North  Carolina,  two 
from  Georgia  and  one  each  from  Louis- 
iana and  Virginia.  Pennington  (Rep.) 
was  chosen  speaker,  receiving  117  votes 
to  85  for  his  Democratic  opponent. 

As  the  American  party  was  never 
anything  but  a  mere  minority  or  third 
party,  in  Congress,  it  naturally  had  lit- 
tle influence  upon  national  legislation. 
"Huinphrej'  Marshall,  a  Kentucky 
120 


THE  KNOW-NOTHING  PARTY. 

Know-Nothing-,  said  that  he  found  no 
American  party  in  Washington;  that 
the  engrossing  subject  was  the  negro." 
(Ehodes  History  of  the  United  States 
-II.,  117). 

"Know-Nothingism,"  says  Von  Hoist 
(V.,  129),  "disappeared  without  having 
accomplished  the  least  thing  against 
immigrants,  adopted  citizens  or  Cath- 


121 


IX. 

LAST  YEARS. 

\  FTER  1856,  the  disintegration  of 
■^^*-  the  Know-Nothing  order  was  rapid. 
It  had  carried  Maryland  and  Rhode 
Island  in  the  state  election  of  1856,  and 
in  these  states  and  in  Kentucky  and 
Tennessee  it  continued  to  retain  some 
political  power;  but  the  question  in 
practical  politics  with  respect  to  it  was : 
"Where  will  the  fragments  fall?" 
In  New  York  the  Democrats  were  able 
to  pick  up  some  strength  by  absorbing 
a  portion  of  the  Know-Nothing  ele- 
ment. Vv'e  find,  for  instance,  Erastus 
Brooks  becoming,  in  the  course  of 
years,  a  Democrat  in  good  standing,  so 
that  in  1868  he  went  as  a  delegate  to 
the  convention  of  the  Democratic  par- 
ty which  put  Seymour  in  nomination 
for  the  presidency.  Millard  Fillmore, 
in  1864,  openly  supported  McClellan 
122 


THE  KXOV/-XOTHIXCt  PARTY. 

for  the  presidency.  In  Ohio,  some 
years  later,  we  find  Campbell,  one  of 
the  leaders  of  the  Know-Nothing  party 
in  that  state,  enrolled  with  the  Demo- 
cratic party.  The  larger  element  of  the 
party  in  the  northern  states  drifted  in- 
to the  anti-slavery  movement  repre- 
sented by  the  Republican  party. 

In  the  speakership  contest  of  1859- 
60,  the  border-state  Americans  held 'the 
balance  of  power.  The  Democrats,  at 
one  period  of  the  contest,  sought  to  win 
the  speakership  by  combining  upon 
Smith,  an  American  congressman  from 
North  Carolina.  He  received  112  votes 
January  27,  1860, — within  three  votes 
of  an  election.  When  Pennington,  the 
Republican  candidate,  was  finally  elect- 
ed speaker,  February  1,  1860,  he  re- 
ceived 117  votes,  am.ong  them  the  votes 
of  two  Americans,  Briggs  of  New  York 
and  Henry  Y/inter  Davis  of  Maryland. 

Another  episode  of  interest  in  the 
absorption  of  the  Know-Nothing  fol- 
lowing: occurred  in  the  Chicago  Repub- 
lican convention  of  1860.  Two-thirds 
of  the  delegates  to  that  convention  are 
said  to  have  favored  the  nomination  of 
William  H.  Seward.  Several  influ- 
ences com.bined  in  depriving  Seward  of 
123 


TEE  KNOVi-NOTHINO  PARTY. 

what  was  almost  within  his  grasp.  The 
feeling  that  he  might  prove  too  radi- 
cal a  candidate  to  be  available,  and  the 
criticism  to  which  he  was  exposed  in 
his  own  state  on  various  grounds  had 
their  bearing;  but  in  the  view  of  many 
historians  the  question  of  his  availa- 
bility as  presidential  candidate  in 
Pennsylvania  and  Indiana  also  figured. 
In  these  states  the  Republican  party 
was  depending  for  its  success  upon  the 
complete  absorption  of  the  Know-ISToth- 
ing  following,  and  Seward's  outspoken 
denunciation  of  the  Know-Nothing 
movement,  and  his  entire  career,  since 
1840,  as  towards  the  nativist  movement, 
were  considered  factors  that  would 
count  against  him.  As  a  consequence, 
the  Republican  candidates  for  gover- 
nor in  those  states  influenced  their  del- 
egations against  Seward. 

The  Constitutional  Union  party,  which 
nominated  Bell  and  Everett  as  candi- 
dates in  1860,  was  made  up  chiefly  of 
the  jetsam  and  flotsam  of  the  American 
party  not  yet  absorbed  by  the  other 
parties.  Bell  was  a  member  of  the 
Ajnerican  party,  and  Everett  had  sup- 
ported Filhnore  in  1856.  The  Consti- 
tutional Union  movement  was  organ- 
124 


f 


TEE  KNOW-NOTHING  PARTY. 

ized  by  such  border  and  southern  state 
Americans  as  Crittenden  of  Kentucky 
and  Houston  of  Texas.  Filhnore's  to- 
tal vote  in  1866  was  874,000;  Bell's  in 
1860,  646,000;  but  while  Bell  main- 
tained Fillmore's  stren^h  in  the  slave 
states,  where  he  received  516,000  as 
compared  with  Fillmore's  480,000  in 
1856,  in  the  free  states  Bell  received 
only  130,000  as  compared  with  Fill- 
more's 394,000  in  1856. 


186 


X. 

LOCAL  SKETCHES. 

T  T  remains  to  make  special  mention 
^  of  Know-Nothing  activity  in  cer- 
tain localities  where  it  worked  itself 
out  more  fully  and  typically  as  an  in- 
fluence in  city  and  state  polities. 

The  career  of  the  Know-Nothing 
party  in  Maryland  is  noteworthy  by 
reason  of  the  fact  that  this  was  the 
only  state  carried  by  the  American 
party  in  the  presidential  election  of 
1858;  that  Know-Nothingism  persisted 
here  as  a  political  force  longer  than 
in  any  other  locality,  the  Know-Noth- 
ings holding  the  reins  of  government 
in  Baltimore  from  the  fall  of  1854  to 
the  fall  of  1860 ;  and  also  for  the  elec- 
tion riots  and  disorders  which  Know- 
Nothingism  perpetrated  in  Baltimore. 

Twice,  (in  1855  and  in  1857),  the 
126 


THE  KNOW-NOTHING  PARTY. 

Know-Nothiiigs  carried  the  state  Leg- 
islature. In  the  latter  year  they 
elected  a  candidate  for  governor  by 
reason  of  a  large  fraudulent  vote  cast 
in  Baltimore. 

The  picturesque,  and  at  the  same  time 
the  repulsive,  feature  of  the  reign  of 
Know-Nothingism  in  Baltimore  was 
the  roughing  of  elections.  In  October, 
1854,  the  Know-Nothing  candidate  was 
elected  mayor  of  Baltimore  by  a  ma- 
jority of  two  thousand.  In  1856  Thom- 
as Swann,  a  former  president  of  the 
Baltimore  &  Ohio  railroad,  was  the 
Know-Nothing  candidate  for  mayor  of 
Baltimore,  and  he  was  elected  by  a 
majority  of  fifteen  himdred.  After 
this  the  Know-Nothings  ruled  Balti- 
more and  Maryland  with  a  high  hand. 
They  carried  Baltimore  for  their  can- 
didate for  governor  in  1857  by  over 
nine  thousand  majority,  and  at  the 
municipal  election  of  1858  they  re- 
elected Swann  mayor  by  a  majority  of 
19,154  out  of  a  total  vote  of  24,003. 
They  again  carried  the  city  in  the  fi4\ 
of  1859  by  a  majority  of  12^000  for 
their  state  ticket.  The  Legislature 
chosen  this  year  was  Democratic,  and' 
the  growing,  but  heretofore  impotent 
127 


THE  KNOW-NOTHING  PARTY. 

popular  disapproval  of  the  way  the 
elections  were  run  in  Baltimore,  now 
succeeded  in  enacting  a  practical  rem- 
edy. The  control  of  the  Baltimore  po- 
lice was  taken  out  of  the  hands  of  the 
local  officials  and  vested  in  a  commis- 
sion designated  by  the  Legislature. 
Under  the  improved  police  system,  dis- 
order at  the  polls  was  prevented,  and 
a  fair  election  made  possible,  and  so 
in  the  mvmicipal  election  of  1860,  the 
Know-Nothings  were  overwhelmingly 
defeated.  The  reform  party  elected 
its  candidate  for  mayor  by  over  8,- 
000  majority.  Thus,  after  six  years  of 
riotous  control,  the  Know-Nothings 
were  driven  forever  from  the  citadel  of 
their  power.* 

Disorders  at  local  elections  were 
frequent  in  New  York  and  Phil- 
adelphia, as  well  as  in  Balitmore, 
in  the  years  1840  to  1860.  Baltimore 
and  its  Know-Nothings,  however,  car- 
ried such  excesses  to  the  limit.  Among 
the   Know-Nothing   clubs   of   the   city 

*For  a  full  an  interesting  account  of  the 
Baltimore  American  party,  see  L.  F. 
Schneckebleir's  "History  of  the  Know-Noth- 
ing Party  in  Maryland"  (Johns  Hopkins 
University  Studies,  series  17,  No.  4-5.) 

128 


THE  KNOW-NOTHING  PARTY. 

which  figured  in  these  disorders,  were 
the  Tigers,  the  Black  Snakes,  the 
Eip  Eaps,  the  Blood  Tubs  and  more 
especially  the  Plug  Uglies.  There  were 
clubs  on  the  Democratic  side  such  as 
the  Bloody  Eii?hts,  the  Bloats  an  1  the 
Buttenders,  no  less  euphonious  in  name 
and  disorderly  in  conduct;  but  after 
1856  the  Democrats  virtually  laid 
down,  leaving  the  Know-Nothings  the 
monopoly  of  disorder  and  ruffianism. 

In  the  municipal  election  of  October, 
1856,  the  Plug  Uglies  flocked  down  to- 
wards the  Eighth  ward  to  attack  the 
Democratic  partisans,  and  in  a  riot, 
lasting  several  hours,  four  men  were 
killed  and  over  fifty  wounded.  In  the 
following  month,  at  the  presidential 
election,  this  rioting  was  renewed,  the 
Know-Nothing  clubs  wheeling  a  cannon 
through  the  streets;  ten  men  were  kill- 
ed and  over  250  wounded.  In  the  elec- 
tions of  the  succeeding  years,  the  only 
ward  in  which  the  Democrats  could 
vote  without  danger  was  the  Eighth 
ward,  where  the  Irish  element  was 
strong.  In  most  other  wards  only 
Know-Nothings,  who  gave  the  proper 
signal,  could  get  to  the  polls,  all  other 
citizens  being  pushed  aside  or  intim- 
129 


THE  KXOW-NOTHING  PARTY. 

idated.  In  some  instances,  bodies  of 
voters  to  the  number  of  a  hundred  or 
more  were  cooped  up  in  cellars  until 
the  election  was  over.  The  governor 
of  Maryland  sought,  in  1857,  to  induce 
the  Know-Nothing  mayor  of  Baltimore 
to  take  effective  steps  against  election 
disorder,  but  his  efforts  were  in  vain. 
In  the  following  years  the  shoe  maker's 
awl  became  a  favorite  Know-Nothing 
weapon  of  intimidation.  Plug  Ugly 
clubs  paraded  the  streets  carrying 
transparencies  showing  the  figure  of  a 
man  running,  with  another,  in  pursuit 
eticking  an  av/1  into  him. 

An  interesting  episode  in  the  his- 
tory of  the  state  of  Massachusetts  was 
its  famous  Know- Nothing  Legislature, 
which  convened  in  the  first  week  of  the 
year  1855.  The  upper  house  was  sol- 
idly Know- Nothing.  The  lower  house 
was  also  Know-Nothing,  with  the  ex- 
ception of  one  Democrat,  one  Whig  and 
one  Free  Soiler.  One  of  the  opposi- 
tion papers  suggested  as  a  text  for  the 
customary  election  sermon  to  be  preach- 
ed before  this  Legislature,  "For  we  are 
but  of  yesterday  and  know  nothing." 
(Job  8,  9).  In  this  Legislature  there 
130 


THE  KNOW-NOTHING  PARTY. 

were  about  half  as  many  farmers  as  the 
average  in  previous  state  Legislatures, 
but  there  were  four  times  as  many  cler- 
gymen. Twenty-four  ministers  sat  in 
the  upper  and  lower  houses. 

The  most  notable  event  of  the  ses- 
sion was  the  appointment  of  a  commit- 
tee to  inspect  the  nunneries,  the  so- 
called  "smelling  conunittee."  This 
committee,  which  was  under  the  lead 
of  one  Hiss,  a  "Grand  Worthy  Instruc- 
tor" of  a  Know-Nothing  council,  be- 
came a  junketing  affair,  and  carried 
along  with  it  a  number  of  invited 
guests.  Its  members  lived  at  the  best 
hotels  and  drank  expensive  wines  at 
the  cost  of  the  state.  The  hotel  ex- 
penses of  a  notorious  woman  were  in- 
cluded among  its  many  vouchers. 

A  writer  in  The  Boston  Advertiser 
of  that  period  thus  describes  the  com- 
mittees' visit  to  a  convent: 

"The  gentlemen — we  presume  we 
must  call  members  of  the  Legislature 
by  this  name — roamed  over  the  whole 
house  from  attic  to  cellar.  No  part  of 
the  house  was  enough  protected  by  re- 
spect for  the  common  coiirtesies  of  civ- 
ilized life  to  be  spared  the  examination. 
The  ladies'  dresses  hanging  in  their 
131 


THE  KyO]y-XOTHING  PARTY. 

wardrobes  were  tossed  over.  The  par- 
ty invaded  the  chapel  and  showed  their 
respect — as  Protestants,  we  presume — 
for  the  One  God  whom  all  Christians 
worship,  by  talking  loudly  with  their 
hats  on;  while  the  ladies  shrank  in 
terror  at  the  desecration  of  a  spot 
which  they  hallowed." 

Under  pressure  of  public  clamor,  the 
Legislature  began  to  investigate  its  in- 
vestigating committee,  and  three  suc- 
cessive committees  were  necessary  for 
the  task.  Hiss  was  finally  expelled 
from  the  House  by  the  votes,  so  he 
claimed,  of  men  who  had  enjoyed  the 
hospitality  of  the  committee. 

The  following  lines  were  written  by 
some  satirist  of  the  time: 
"One   after   one     the    honored     Bay-leaves 

fade. 
And   ancient   glories   wither   in    the    shade; 
The  Solon's  of  the  state,   at  duty's  call, 
Have    hissed    a    loving    member   from    the 

hall. 
Take   courage,   Joseph,   in   thy  great   ado; 
The  world  has  hissed  the  Legislature,  too." 

Further  investigations  followed, 
bringing  to  light  a  series  of  petty  steal- 
ings. George  W.  Haines,  in  his  inter- 
esting sketch  of  this  KJaow-Nothing 
Legislature  (The  American  Historical 
Asscn.  vol.  8,  part  1,  page  187) 
132 


THE  KNOW-NOTHING  PARTY. 

states  that  the  notion  was  widespread 
among  its  members  that  cheating  the 
government  was  only  a  venial  offense. 
It  was,  says  Congdon  (Kecollections  of 
a  Journalist,  146),  "the  most  illy-  as- 
sorted legislative  body  that  ever  met  in 
this  country." 

The  only  distinctively  nativist  meas- 
ure passed  by  the  Legislature  was  a 
proposed  amendment  to  the  constitu- 
tion restricting  office-holding  to  native- 
born  Americans,  and  requiring  twenty- 
one  years  residence  for  naturalization. 
The  proposed  amendment,  however,  was 
never  submitted  to  popular  vote,  nor 
did  it  receive  the  endorsement  of  the 
succeeding  Legislature.  Another  meas- 
ure, in  which  we  have  the  prototype  of 
such  legislation  as  the  Bennett  law  of 
Wisconsin  and  the  Edward's  law  of 
Illinois  (A.  D.  1890),  was  introduced 
by  one  Johnson,  who  claimed  that  he 
sought  a  seat  in  the  Legislature  for  that 
express  purpose.  This  measure  pro- 
posed to  extend  public  supervision  over 
all  private  schools,  to  the  end  that  the 
state  should  see  that  its  requirements 
in  the  matter  of  education  were  met  by 
the  course  of  study  and  text-books,  and, 
presumably,  the  teachers  employed  in 
133 


THE  KNOW-NOTHING  PARTY. 

sueli  private  and  church  schools.  John- 
son's measure,  however,  was  not  press- 
ed by  his  colleagues. 

Nevv'  York  city,  though  the  cradle  of 
nativisra,  and  the  headquarters  of  the 
controlling  Know-lSTothing  clique,  was 
not  captured,  politically,  by  the  Amer- 
ican party,  although  strenuous  efforts 
were  put  forth  in  that  direction.  In 
the  local  election  of  1854,  James  W. 
Barker  appeared  as  the  Ivnow-JSTothing 
candidate  for  mayor.  The  factions  of 
the  Democratic  party  imited  on  Fer- 
nando Wood  as  their  candidate,  and 
the  Whigs  nominated  John  J.  Her- 
riek.  Both  Wood  and  Herrick  were  at 
that  time  members  of  the  Know-Noth- 
ing party.  Wood  was  elected  by  a 
narrow  plurality:  the  Know-Nothings 
claimed  that  Barker  had  been  counted 
out.  He  received  18,547  votes.  Wood 
was  re-elected  mayor  at  the  city  elec- 
tion in  the  fall  of  1856  over  the  Know- 
Nothing  candidate,  Isaac  O.  Barker,  a 
cousin  of  James  W.  Barker.  Wood's 
plurality  was  about  9,000.  In  the  local 
elections  subsequent  to  1856,  the  Know- 
Nothings  did  not  depend  on  their  own 
strength,  but  sought  combinations. 
134 


THE  KXOW-NOTEIXG  PARTY. 

Their  vote  dwindled  from  8,500  in  1857, 
to  a  little  over  4,000  in  1859.  After 
1856  the  Republican  party  had  become 
the  real  competitor  against  the  Demo- 
cracy in  Xew  York  city,  and  the  Know- 
Nothing  party  sank  to  a  position  of 
a  third  party.  By  the  beginning  of 
1800  it  had  disappeared  from  Xew 
York  city  as  a  party  organization. 

In  the  municipal  election  of  May, 
1854,  Conrad,  the  Whig  candidate,  was 
elected  mayor  of  Philadelphia,  receiv- 
ing about  29,506  votes  to  21,100  cast  for 
Vaux,  Democrat.  The  election  was 
won  by  the  Know-Xothing  councils 
quietly  determining  to  support  the  can- 
didacy of  Conrad.  Subsequently,  May- 
or-elect Conrad  took  the  position  that 
all  policemen  should  be  of  American 
birth,  thus  indicating  that  he  was  in 
sympathy  with  the  Know-Xothing 
movement,  although  not  elected  as  the 
nominee  of  that  party.  In  the  election 
of  the  following  year  the  Know-Xoth- 
ing  party  was  successful  in  electing  its 
caudidat^is  to  all  minor  city  offices  voted 
upon ;  but  in  the  municipal  elections  of 
May,  1856,  the  Democrats  returned  to 
power  in  Philadelphia,  electing  their 
135 


THE  KNOW-NOTHING  PARTY. 

candidate,  Vaiix,  for  mayor,  by  sever- 
al thousand  majority.  In  1858,  and 
again  in  1860,  the  candidates  of  the 
opposing  parties,  adopting  the  name  of 
"the  People's  party,"  triumphed  over 
the  Democrats  in  Philadelphia's  muni- 
cipal elections. 

The  nativist  sentiment  was  always 
strong  in  the  city  of  Boston.  Thomas 
Aspinwall  Davis,  nominated  by  the  na- 
tive American  party,  was  mayor  of  Bos- 
ton in  1845,  but  the  wave  of  Nativism 
soon  subsided.  The  following  year  the 
Whigs  regained  political  control  of 
Boston.  In  1854  the  Native-American 
or  Know-Nothing  party  elected  Dr. 
Jerome  Crownshield  Smith  mayor  of 
Boston.  He  showed  himself  extremely 
fertile  in  making  suggestions.  In  Win- 
sor's  History  of  Boston,  (III.  page  259) 
we  read  the  "he  (Smith)  was  never  tak- 
en quite  seriously  as  a  chief  magis- 
trate." In  the  municipal  election  of 
December,  1855,  the  nominee  of  the 
Citizen's  movement  was  elected  over  the 
Know-Nothing  candidate  by  2,000  ma- 
jority. Boston  was  satisfied  with  one 
year  of  Know-Nothing  rule. 

In  Louisville,  Ky.,  the  Know-Noth- 
136 


THE  KNOW-NOTHING  PARTY. 

ing  movement  was  signalized  in  August 
1855,  by  an  election  riot,  the  occasion 
being  referred  to  as  "Bloody  Monday" 
in  the  annals  of  that  city.  Shaler  in 
his  History  of  Kentucky,  (page  219), 
tells  us  that  the  disorder  was  occasioned 
by  "roughs  of  the  Native-American 
party  attacking  the  Catholic  people." 
Twenty-two  persons  were  killed,  two- 
thirds  of  whom  were  residents  of  the 
Irish  qiiarter,  and  sixteen  houses  burn- 
ed. In  this  election,  which  was  for 
state  officers,  Moorhead,  Know-Nothing 
candidate  for  Governor  of  Kentucky 
was  elected,  receiving  68,816  votes  to 
65,413  for  Clarke  the  Democratic  can- 
didate. 

"In  Alabama,  the  new  party  made 
some  effort  before  1855,  and  in  the  lo- 
cal conflict  at  Mobile,  the  Catholic 
property  near  that  city  was  burned  by 
American  partisans"  (Du  Bose.  Life  of 
Yancey,  p.  291) .  The  Democratic  mayor 
of  Mobile,  Jones  M,  Withers,  affiliated 
in  1854  with  the  American  party;  but 
subsequently  threw  it  over  and  ran 
again  as  a  Democrat  for  mayor  of  Mo- 
bile and  was  re-elected. 

The  Know-Nothing  movement  ap- 
peared in  a  less  pronounced  form  in 
137 


THE  EXOW-XOTHIXG  PARTY. 

many  other  cities  besides  New  York, 
Boston,  Philadelphia,  Baltimore  and 
Louisville.  It  was  manifest  in  the  local 
politics  of  Cincinnati.  In  Detroit  in 
the  municipal  elections  of  1855  a 
Know-Xothing  candidate  for  mayor  re- 
ceived 2,000  votes  to  2,700  for  the  Dem- 
ocratic candidate  and  in  San  Francisco 
the  Kaow-Xothings  in  the  fall  elections 
of  1855  polled  1,500  votes  out  of  a  total 
of  12,000. 


138 


XI. 
PERSONNEL. 

HENRY  WILSON  tells  us  (ch.  32, 
Rise  and  Fall  of  the  Slave  Power), 
that  hundreds  of  those  who  joined  the 
Know-Nothing  movement  eared  little 
fur  its  avowed  principles,  but  were  ea- 
ger to  possess  and  use  its  machinery. 
"I  did  not  dream,"  says  George  W. 
Julian  (Political  Recollections  p.  143), 
"that  in  less  than  two  years  the  men 
composing  this  mob  would  be  found 
denying  their  membership  in  this  se- 
cret order,  or  confessing  it  with 
shame." 

Edward  Everett  Hale  says,  "it  was 
distinctly  a  Philistine  movement,  so 
far  as  its  leaders  went."  As  for  the 
rank  and  file,  they  were  not  anywhere 
the  better  element  of  the  native-born 
population.  A  writer  in  The  NeAV 
England  Magazine  (n.  s.  Vol.  15,  p. 
139 


THE  KNOW-NOTHING  PARTY. 

82),  made  a  careful  study  of  the  roster 
of  niembership  at  Worcester,  Mass.,  in 
3854.  He  finds  that  a  large  percen- 
tage, in  signing  the  rolls,  misspelled 
the  names  of  the  streets  iipon  which 
they  lived;  that  there  were  few  profes- 
sional men  among  them,  and  that 
where  they  were  tax-payers,  they  aver- 
aged far  below  the  per  <;apita  of  the 
community  at  large. 

Thousands  went  into  the  new  move- 
ment unthinkingly,  but  for  the  novel- 
ty of  the  thing,  and  without  under- 
standing its  character.  The  case  of 
Ulysses  S.  Grant  is  an  illustration.  He 
tells  us  in  his  "Memoirs"  (Vol.  1,  p. 
169) :  "Most  of  my  neighbors  had 
kno^vn  me  as  an  officer  in  the  army 
with  Whig  proclivities.  They  had 
been  on  the  same  side,  and  on  the 
death  of  their  party  many  had  become 
Know-Nothings  or  members  of  the 
American  party.  There  was  a  lodg-. 
near  me  [he  then  resided  on  a  farm 
in  the  vicinity  of  St.  Louis],  and  I  was 
invited. to  join  it.  I  accepted  the  in- 
vitation; was  initiated  and  attended  a 
meeting  just  one  week  later;  and  never 
went  to  another  afterwards.  *  * 
But  all  secret  oath-bound  societies  are 
140 


THE  ENOW-NOTHING  PARTY. 

dangerous  to  any  nation.  ^-  *  No 
political  society  can,  or  ought,  to  ex- 
ist where  one  of  its  corner  stones  is 
opposition  to  freedom  of  thought,  or 
the  right  of  worshiping  God  'accord- 
ing to  the  dictates  of  one's  own  con- 
science.' "  Subsequently,  Grant  voted 
(1856)  for  James  Buchanan,  the  Dem- 
ocratic   candidate    for   president. 

Undoubtedly,  thousands  of  the  south- 
ern Wliigs  went  into  the  new  American 
party  as  unconsciously,  so  to  speak,  as 
did  Ulysses  S.  Grant  in  1854.  It 
would  probably  be  incorrect  to  impute 
bigotry  to  many  of  those  public  men 
from  the  south,  once  rei^resenting  the 
Wiiig-  party,  but  subsequently  absorbed, 
and  going  with  the  mass  of  their  consti- 
tuents, into  the  Know-Xothing  ranks. 
John  J.  Crittenden  of  Kentucky,  John 
Bell  of  Tennessee,  both  members  of  the 
United  States  Senate,  were  classed 
with  the  American  party.  Crittenden 
had  been  for  forty  years  in  public  life, 
a  member  of  the  cabinet  and  rich  in 
the  honors  of  the  Whig  party.  Bell, 
spoken  of  as  "the  generous  Bell,"  had 
also  served  in  the  cabinet  of  a  Whig 
president.  These  two  union-loving 
men  found  themselves  stranded  as  po- 
141 


THE  KNOW-NOTHING  PARTY. 

litical  orphans  in  the  last  years  of  tho 
American  party,  with  whose  more  pro- 
scriptive  principles  it  is  fair,  as  well 
as  charitable,  to  assume  they  had  no 
real  sympathy.  Senator  Adams  of  Mis- 
sissippi was  another  Know-Nothing 
United  States  senator. 

Anthony  Kennedy  of  Maryland,  was 
elected  United  States  senator  by  the 
Know-Nothing  Legislature  of  that 
state.  Sam  Houston,  hero  of  the  no- 
table struggle  of  the  Texas  republic 
against  Mexico,  and  who  was  United 
States  senator  from  Texas  from  1853- 
59,  was  affiliated  with  the  American 
party,  and  undoubtedly  leaned  towards 
some  of  its  principles.  In  1854  he 
was  questioned  by  Senator  Mallory,  on 
the  floor  of  the  Senate,  as  to  whether 
he  approved  of  the  Know-Nothing  doc- 
trine that  Roman  Catholics  should  be 
ineligible  for  office.  He  replied  that 
he  would  not  vote  for  such  a  law,  and 
could  not  approve  of  it.  Houston  re- 
ceived a  few  votes  for  president  in  tho 
Democratic  national  convention  of 
1852,  in  the  Know-Nothing  convention 
of  1856  and  in  the  Union  Constitu- 
tional convention  of  1860.  He  sup- 
ported Fillmore  in  1856.  Fillmore'3 
142 


THE  KNOW-NOTHING  PARTY. 

associate  on  the  presidential  ticket  in 
1856  was  Donnelson  of  Tennessee,  a 
nephew  of  Andrew  Jackson,  Donnel- 
son had  joined  the  Know-Nothing  or- 
der with  other  Whig  politicians  of  his 
state  in  1853.  Henry  Winter  Davis  of 
Baltimore  was  member  of  Congress,  first 
as  a  WTiig  in  1854  and  subsequently 
as  a  Know-Xothing  in  1856-58.  Here 
he  was  the  orator  of  the  new  party  in 
all  controversies  ("the  Rupert  of  de- 
bate")- He  was  undoubtedly  smirched 
with  some  of  the  bigotry,  and  expressed 
not  a  few  of  the  rabid  sentiments  of 
the  movement.  This  may  have  been  due 
to  his  habit  of  epigram  as  well  as  to 
his  desire  to  please  the  Know-Nothing 
clubs  of  Baltimore.  His  Know-Noth- 
ing constituents  censured  him  for 
helping  to  elect  Pennington  speaker 
of  the  House  in  1860.  He  was  agaiii 
in  Congress  diiring  the  civil  war  as  a 
Kepublican. 

Among  other  "southern  Americans," 
as  they  came  to  be  called,  were  Kenneth 
Kaynor  of  North  Carolina,  a  strong 
unionist  advocate;  he,  it  was,  who  for- 
nuilated  the  third,  or  union  degree,  of 
the  order;  Garrett  Davis  of  Kentucky, 
Humphrey  Marshall  of  Louisville,  the 
143 


THE  KNOW-NOTHING  PARTY. 

]-itter  the  acknowledged  leader  of  the 
border-state  Know-Nothings,  ex-Con- 
gi'essman  Botts  of  Richmond,  who  was 
mentioned  for  the  presidential  nomina- 
tion in  1856,  Call  of  Florida,  Zollicoffer 
of  Tennessee,  and  Bartlett  of  Kentuc- 
ky, who  sought  the  vice-presidential 
nomination  in  1856. 

In  the  presidential  campaign  of  1856, 
the  I^ow-Nothings  taunted  the  Re- 
publicans with  the  charge  that  Fre- 
mont was  a  Catholic,  and  the  Republi- 
cans retorted  that  Fillmore,  the  Know- 
Nothing  candidate,  was  not  a  Know- 
Xothing;  but  although  he  had  begun 
political  life  as  an  anti-Mason,  Fill- 
more, in  his  lust  for  the  presidency, 
had  consented  to  be  made  a  third  de- 
gTee  Know-Nothing  at  Buffalo  in  1855. 
His  public  expressions  were,  however, 
free  from  religious  intolerance.  Eras- 
tus  Brooks,  whom  the  Knovi-Nothings 
nominated  as  governor  of  New  York 
in  1856,  but  who  failed  of  election, 
was  prominent  in  the  public  eye  on  ac- 
count of  his  discussion  with  Bishop 
Hu.ghes  over  Catholic  Church  prop- 
erty and  its  tenure. 

Henry  Gardner,  elected  governor  of 
Massachusetts  by  the  American  party 
111 


THE  KNOW-NOTHING  PARTY. 

in  1854,  and  again  in  1855,  H.  M. 
Fuller,  leader  of  the  conservative 
Know-Nothings  of  Pennsylvania,  L.  D. 
Campbell  of  Ohio,  leader  of  the  anti- 
slavery  Know-Nothings,  Governor 
Johnson  of  Pennsylvania,  were  other 
public  men  identified  with  the  Know- 
Nothing  movement.  N.  P,  Banks,  who 
succeeded  Gardner  as  governor  of 
Massachusetts,  was  elected  to  Congress 
in  1852,  as  he  afterwards  admitted,  by 
a  union  of  the  Democrats  and  Know- 
Nothings.  "In  the  spring  or  summer 
of  1854,  Gen.  Banks  asked  me  whether 
I  intended  to  join  the  Know-Nothings. 
I  said  no ;  that  I  had  left  politics,  and 
that  I  intended  to  practice  law.  He 
said  in  reply:  'I  am  in  politics  and  I 
must  go  on.'"  (Boutwell's  Sixty 
Years  in  Public  Affairs,  I.,  238.) 
Banks  was  chosen  speaker  of  the 
House  after  a  prolonged  contest,  in 
February,  1856,  Thereafter  he  affili- 
ated with  the  Republicans.  He  be- 
came a  general  in  the  civil  war,  and 
returned  to  Congress  after  its  close, 
serving  in  the  lower  house  from  1865- 
74,  and  again  in  1888. 

Henry  Wilson,  afterwards  vice-pres- 
ident of  the  United  States  from  1872- 
145 


THE  KNOW-NOTHING  PARTY. 

76,  after  being  black-balled  by  one 
Know-Nothing  lodge,  succeeded  in  ob- 
taining admission  to  another.  The 
Know-Nothing  Legislature  of  Massa- 
chusetts elected  him  United  States  sen- 
ator in  1855.  He  led  the  bolt  of  the 
free  state  delegates  from  the  Know- 
Nothing  convention  at  Philadelphia 
in  the  same  year.  After  that  he  cast 
his  lot  with  the  Republican  party.  He 
is  said  to  have  regretted  his  early  con- 
nection with  the  Know-Nothing  move- 
ment. Congdon  (Recollections  of  a 
Journalist,  146),  says:  "Wlien  he  was 
running  for  the  vice-presidency,  and 
Catholic  votes  were  desirable,  if  he  did 
not  himself  deny  the  fact  [that  he  had 
joined  the  Know-Nothings],  he  suffer- 
ed others  to  deny  it." 

Another  picturesque  figure  in  this 
movement  was  George  Law  of  New 
York  city.  Law  was  the  son  of  a  north 
of  Ireland  immigrant.  He  began 
life  as  a  hod  carrier,  just  as  Wilson  be- 
gan life  as  a  day  laborer.  By  the  year 
1850,  however,  Law  was  a  wealthy  con- 
tractor, and  a  liberal  patron  of  the 
nativist  movement.  His  ambition  was 
to  be  the  presidential  candidate  of  the 
American  party  in  1856,  and  he  had 
146 


TEE  KNOW-NOTHING  PARTY. 

the  support  of  a  number  of  journals 
and  a  large  personal  following,  per- 
haps held  together  by  his  financial 
largesses.  In  the  presidential  conven- 
tion of  1856,  however,  Law  received  but 
twenty-seven  votes  out  of  a  total  of 
over  two  hundred;  after  which  we  hear 
little  more  of  him.     He  died  in  1881. 

Richard  W.  Thompson  of  Indiana, 
who  was  afterwards  secretary  of  the 
navy  in  the  cabinet  of  President  Hayes, 
was  a  Know-Nothing  in  1856.  Greorge 
W.  Julian,  in  his  Political  Recollec- 
tions (p.  155),  referring  to  the  cam- 
paign of  1856,  says:  "Eichard  W. 
Tnompson,  then  the  professed  cham- 
pion of  Fillmore,  but  in  reality  the 
stipendiary  of  the  Democrats,  de- 
nounced the  Republicans  as  abolition- 
ists." Thompson  was  evidently  a 
Know-Nothing  from  conviction,  judg- 
ing by  his  "Footprints  of  the  Jesuits," 
and  other  publications  which  came 
from  his  pen  during  the  period  1872- 
95. 

Four  Know-Nothing  governors  were 
prominent  in  the  Philadelphia  conven- 
tion of  the  party,  Jime,  1855 :  Gov- 
ernors Gardner  of  Massachusetts, 
Fletcher  of  Vermont,  Johnson  of  Penn- 
147 


THE  KNOV/-NOTHING  PARTY. 

sylvania  and  Brown  of  Tennessee. 

Wliitney  (Defence  of  the  American 
Party,  p.  303),  says: 

"The  question  has  often  been  asked: 
'Why  cannot  an  American  paper  be 
sustained?'  The  answer  is  plain. 
Every  attempt  to  establish  one,  until 
recently,  has  been  made  odious  through 
the  Romish  and  partisan  presses  of  the 
country."  Americans  feared  to  sub- 
scribe for  such  a  paper,  "lest  they 
should  share  in  the  general  obloquy,  or 
suffer  in  their  business  and  private  re- 
lations." "An  advertisement  in  them 
was-  regarded  as  a  dangerous  experi- 
ment." 

But  the  Know-Nothing  movement 
was  not  without  a  number  of  weekly 
esponents  and  at  Worcester,  Mass.,  it 
established  a  daily  organ.  At  Louis- 
ville, the  brilliant  George  D.  Prentiss 
lent  his  pen  to  the  proscriptive  move- 
ment; and  his  paper  was  held  largely 
responsible  for  the  murders  and  incen- 
diarism of  Bloody  Monday  in  that 
city. 


148 


M 


XII. 
AFTERWARDS. 

OST  of  those  who  continued  to 
adhere  to  the  American  party 
during- the  latter  years  of  its  activity, 
voted,  in  1860,  for  Bell  and  Everett, 
candidates  of  the  Union  party  for  pres- 
ident and  vice-president.  Bell  had 
been  a  senator  from  Tennessee  (1853-9) 
outspoken  in  favoring  the  nativist 
restrictions  upon  naturalization.  The 
personal  following  of  Erastus  Brooks 
in  the  state  of  New  York,  made  up 
largely  of  the  more  consistent  Know- 
Nothings,  were  especially  pronounced 
for  the  Bell  and  Everett  ticket. 

This  was  the  end  of  the  American 
party,  however,  as  an  organized  influ- 
ence. The  Order  of  United  Americans, 
which  had  grown  and  declined  with 
the  growth  and  decline  of  the  Know- 
Nothing  movement,  maintained  a  fee- 
149 


THE  KNOW-NOTHING  PARTY. 

ble  existence  up  to  1866,  although  ac- 
cording to  its  last  grand  sachem, 
Charles  E.  Gildersleeve,  the  active 
membership  in  New  York  city  in  Jan- 
uary, 1863,  was  "  so  small,  it  could 
have  met  in  one  room."  There  were 
attempts  to  reorganize  the  movement 
after  the  close  of  the  war.  The  old 
head  of  the  Know-Nothing  movement, 
James  W.  Barker,  launched  a  new  or- 
ganization, called  the  Order  of  Amer- 
ican Shield,  which  afterwards  took  the 
name  of  the  Order  of  the  American 
Union.  It  aimed  to  become  a  politi- 
cal influence,  and  established  branches 
in  sixteen  states.  But  its  life  was  fee- 
ble, and  by  the  year  1880  it  had  every- 
where died  oiit.  Some  of  the  veteran 
members  of  the  Know-Nothing  society 
organized  a  social  club  in  New  York 
city  in  187Y,  reviving  for  their  club 
name  the  old  title  of  "Washington 
Chapter,  O.  U.  A." 

The  various  hereditary  patriotic  so- 
cieties, the  organization  of  which  was 
suggested  by  the  recurrence  of  the  cen- 
tennial anniversary  of  Revolutionary 
events,  appear  to  be  entirely  free  from 
the  nativist  and  anti-Catholic  bias. 
150 


THE  KNOW-NOTHING  PARTY. 

Among  these  orders  are  the  Sons  of 
the  American  Revolution,  organized 
in  1875,  the  Daughters  of  the  Ameri- 
can Revolution,  organized  in  1892,  the 
Sons  of  the  War  of  1812,  the  Sons  of 
the  Colonial  Wars,  the  Colonial  Dames, 
etc. 

The  "United  Order  of  American 
Mechanics,"  organized  in  1845,  and 
having  today  a  membership,  variously 
reported  as  from  40,C0  to  60,000;  the 
"Junior  Order  of  American  Mechan- 
ics," organized  in  1853,  and  establish- 
ed in  over  thirty  states,  at  present 
with  a  membership  of  about  100,000, 
and  the  "Patriotic  Order  of  Sons  of 
America,"  established  in  1847,  with  a 
membership  of  about  50,000,  are  sur- 
vivals of  the  nativist  movement.  Their 
membership  is  restricted  to  native-born 
Americans,  and  they  adopt  several  of 
the  old  Know-Nothing  planks  in  their 
platforms.  They  are  probably  every- 
where anti-Catholic  in  their  political 
activity.  The  bulk  of  the  membership 
of  these  organizations  is  found  in  the 
middle  states.  The  Knights  of  Malta, 
established  in  1889,  with  a  membership 
which  has  varied  up  to  25,000,  is  a  ben- 
eficial organization,  with  general  pur- 
151 


TEE  KNOW-NOTHING  PARTY. 

poses  similar  to  those  of  tlie  Junior 
Order  of  United  American  Mechanics, 
but  more  distinctly  Protestant  in  its 
constitution. 

Another  organization,  pronouncedly 
anti-Catholic  in  its  activity,  is  the 
"National  League  for  the  Protection 
of  American  Institutions,"  organized 
in  New  York  in  1889,  with  John  Jay 
as  president,  and  Rev.  James  M.  King 
as  secretary.  Its  objects  were  to  es- 
tablish "constitutional  and  legislative 
safeguards  for  the  American  public 
school  system,"  and  to  prevent  the  ap- 
propriation of  public  funds  to  secta- 
rian or  denominational  institutions. 
It  outlined  a  proposed  "sixteerlh 
amendment"  to  the  constitution  of  the 
United  States  along  these  lines;  and 
it  secured  the  endorsement  of  a  num- 
ber of  the  leading  American  denomi- 
nations for  its  proposition,  but  the  idea 
failed  to  receive  the  required  approval 
of  Congress.  The  National  League 
made  itself  conspicuously  active  in  se- 
curing the  confirmation  by  the  Senate 
of  Governor  Morgan  and  Rev.  Dr. 
Dorchester,  whom  President  Harrison 
had  nominated  at  the  head  of  the  In- 
dian bureau.  This  was  done  with  the 
152 


THE  KNOW 'NOTHING  PARTY. 

express  understanding  that  these  ap- 
pointees would  discourage  further  ap- 
propriations to  the  Catholic  Indian 
schools.  In  New  York  it  opposed  the 
freedom  of  worship  bill,  and  although 
the  measure  was  finally  enacted,  the 
League  succeeded  in  blocking  its  pas- 
sage for  a  number  of  years.  This  meas- 
ure extended  the  benefits  of  the  con- 
stitution, respecting  freedom  of  con- 
science, to  the  inmates  of  the  state  re- 
formatory and  penal  institutions.  The 
league  also  opposed  the  building  of 
the  Catholic  chapel  at  West  Point. 
The  chapel  was  subsequently  built  by 
an  enabling  act  of  Congress.  In  its 
efforts  to  amend  several  of  the  state 
constitutions  in  the  direction  of  pro- 
hibiting the  appropriation  of  public 
funds  to  sectarian  institutions,  Rev. 
James  M.  King,  in  his  work,  "Facing 
the  Twentieth  Century,"  (page  530) 
tells  us  that  the  National  League 
met  defeat  in  the  state  of  Maine 
through  the  efforts  of  the  Protestant 
institutions,  which  feared  that  a  judi- 
cial interpretation  of  the  word  "sec- 
tarian," would  cut  off  certain  appro- 
priations of  public  funds,  which  they 
were  accustomed  to  receive. 
153 


TEE  KNOW-NOTHING  PARTY. 

There  were  many  episodes,  between 
the  close  of  the  civil  war  and  the  rise 
of  the  "new  Know-Nothingism,"  sym- 
bolized in  the  A.  P.  A.,  which  bore  a  re- 
lation to  the  Know-Nothing  movement 
of  the  past,  and  which  evidenced  the 
persistence  of  the  sentiment  upon 
which  that  movement  was  builded." 

The  Culturkampf,  in  Germany,  after 
the  close  of  the  Franco-Prussian  war 
(1872-6),  had  its  echoes  in  the  recru- 
descence of  anti-papal  sentiment  in 
the  United  States.  There  were  not 
wanting  many  pulpit  divines,  even 
some  public  men,  like  Richard  W. 
Thompson,  afterwards  secretary  of  the 
navy  under  President  Hayes,  who  be- 
lieved that  the  Culturkampf  should  be 
adapted  to  conditions  here,  and  vig- 
orously pushed. 

*A  riot  involving'  sectarian  antipathies  oc- 
curred at  New  York,  July  12,  1871.  It  grew 
out  of  an  attack  made  upon  the  Orangemen, 
who  on  July  12,  1S70,  celebrated  the  anniver- 
sary of  the  battle  of  the  Boyne.  They  ad- 
vertised their  intention  of  organizing  a  no- 
table parade  July  12,  1871  On  the  other  hand 
the  Hibernian  element  threatened  to  pre- 
vent this  parade.  The  protection  of  the 
'State  and  city  authorities  was  sought 
against  this  Irish  menace.  When  the  day 
came,  100  Orangemen  paraded  the  streets 
guarded  by  five  militia  regiments.    Near  the 

154 


THE  KNOW-NOTHING  PARTY. 

In  the  '70's,  the  Catholic  parochial 
school  movement  of  the  United  States 
received  a  definite  and  more  systematic 
organization.  The  latent  Kaow-iSroth- 
ing  spirit  caught  eagerly,  as  a  signal 
for  aggressive  discussion,  at  some  par- 
agraphs in  a  Des  Moines  speech  of 
President  Grant,  wherein  he  urged  the 
necessity  of  keeping  church  and  state 
absolutely  separate,  and  preventing  the 
division  of  the  school  fund.  The  pen- 
cil of  the  cartoonist,  Thomas  Nast,  in 
these  years,  was  devoted  in  Harper's 
Weekly  to  embittering  public  sentiment 
against  the  Catholic  Church  on  the 
school  question. 

In  the  presidential  election  of  1876, 
we  find  the  following  notice  taken  at 
this  issue  in  the  platforms  of  the  Re- 
publican and  Democratic  parties :  Sec- 
tion 7  of  the  Eepublican  platform  rec- 
ognizes "the  public  school  system  of  the 
several  states   as  the   bulwark  of  the 

comer  of  Eighth  avenue  and  Twenty-fourth 
street,  an  Irish  tenement  district,  the  pa- 
rade was  assailed  with  stones  and  some 
shots  were  fired.  The  militia  met  this  at- 
tack by  a  volley  which  killed  fifty-one  of 
the  assailants  and  bystanders;  three  of  the 
militia  men  were  killed.  Public  opinion  in 
New  York  sustained  the  authorities  in  their 
action. 

155 


THE  KNOW-NOTHING  PARTY. 

American  republic."  The  platform 
further  recommends  an  amendment  to 
the  constitution  prohibiting  the  appro- 
priation of  [ublic  funds  to  sectarian 
schools  or  institutions.  The  Democrat- 
ic platform  refers  to  "the  false  issue 
with  which  they  [the  Republican  party] 
would  enkindle  sectarian  strife  with 
respect  to  the  public  schools,"  which 
should  be  maintained  "without  preju- 
dice to  any  class,  sect  or  creed."  The 
Republican  platform  of  1880  substan- 
tially reiterates  the  plank  of  1876. 
The  Democratic  platform  of  1880  re- 
cites that  common  schools  have  been 
fostered  and  protected  by  that  party. 

In  the  presidential  election  of  1880, 
most  of  the  New  York  papers.  Demo- 
cratic as  well  as  Republican,  condemn- 
ed the  nomination  by  the  Democrats 
of  William  R.  Grace  as  mayor  of  New 
York.  It  was  the  first  time  that  a 
Catholic  had  been  nominated  for  that 
office,  and  the  school  question,  and  pa- 
pal allegiance,  and  the  impolicy  of 
weighing  down  the  Democratic  Na- 
tional ticket  with  such  a  handicap,  were 
vigorously  dilated  upon.  Grace  was 
elected,  but  he  ran  many  thousands  be- 
hind the  vote  New  York  city  gave 
156 


THE  ENOW-NOTHING  PARTY. 

General  Hancock,  the  Democratic  can- 
didate for  president.  In  the  last  days 
of  the  campaign  of  1884,  James  G. 
Blaine,  the  Eepublican  candidate  for 
president,  was  given  a  reception  by 
nearly  a  thousand  Protestant  ministers, 
at  the  Fifth  Avenue  Hotel,  New  York. 
Their  spokesman.  Rev.  Dr.  Burchard, 
in  a  fervent  address,  alluded  to  the  Dem- 
ocratic party  as  one  whose  antecedents 
were  "Bum,  Romanism  and  Rebellion." 
Blaine  saw  the  impolicy  of  the  remark 
at  the  time,  and  his  managers  sought 
to  have  all  note  of  it  suppressed  in  tha 
newspapers.  Democratic  politicians 
got  hold  of  it,  and  worked  it  with  such 
good  effect,  in  recalling  the  drift  of 
"the  Irish  vote"  to  the  Republican 
standard,  that  in  the  close  state  of 
Xew  York  it  made  a  difference  of  a 
few  thousand  votes  against  Blaine. 
These  votes,  nevertheless,  deprived  him 
of  the  electoral  vote  of  New  York,  and, 
as  a  consequence,  lost  him  the  presi- 
dency. 

A  Boston  school  issue  in  18S6,  fur- 
nishes a  striking  evidence  of  the  eas- 
ily inflammable  anti-Catholic  senti- 
ment of  that  community.  It  arose 
over  a  very  small  matter — a  foot-note 
157 


/ 


THE  KNOW-NOTHING  PARTY. 

in  Swinton's  General  Ilistory,  then  in 
use  in  the  Boston  public  schools.  This 
foot-note  referred  to  "the  sale  of  in- 
dulgences" by  the  Catholic  Church,  as 
a  cause  of  the  Protestant  reformation. 
Members  of  the  Boston  school  board 
who  were  Catholics,  succeeded  in  con- 
vincing the  publishers  that  their  book 
should  be  gotten  out  without  this  foot- 
note. Immediately,  there  was  a  bitter 
public  controversy  on  the  subject  of 
indulgences,  and  the  question  came  up 
in  the  election  of  the  retiring  school 
board  with  such  effect  that  a  board 
satisfactory  to  the  ultra-Protestant 
view  of  this  historical  matter  was 
elected.  Afterwards  Professor  George 
Adams,  of  the  department  of  history 
of  Yale  university,  in  a  text-book  of 
European  History  (p.  302),  took  a 
view  of  the  question  (undoubtedly 
clariiied  by  this  discussion),  which  in- 
dicated a  conviction  that  the  Catho- 
lics of  Boston  were  rather  justified 
in  their  contention. 

An  "American  party"  showed  itself, 
briefly,  in  the  state  politics  of  Cali- 
fornia in  1886.  Frank  Pixley,  pub- 
lisher of  The  Argonaut,  a  weekly  liter- 
ary journal,  anti-Catholic  in  its  views, 
158 


THE  KNOW-NOTHING  PARTY. 

but  of  much  literary  merit,  seems  to 
have  led  tliis  movement.  It  endorsed 
Swift,  the  Republican  candidate  for 
governor,  but  he  repudiated  its  en- 
dorsement with  an  open  and  manly  as- 
sertion of  the  doctrines  of  the  consti- 
tution. The  Democratic  candidate, 
Bartlett,  was  elected  governor  by  a 
few  hundred  plurality.  The  Ameri- 
can party  mouthpiece  asserted  that,  if 
Swift  had  kept  silent,  he  would  have 
won.  The  American  party  disappeared 
from  the  politics  of  California  in  the 
ensuing  year. 


159 


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